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ALLYN AND BACON'S SERIES OF SCHOOL HISTORIES 

THE STORY OF 

MODERN PROGRESS 

WITH A PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 
BY 

WILLIS MASON WEST 

s 
SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT 

IN THE UNIVERSITY OF AJINNESOTA 



0:^0 



ALLYN AND BACON 

BOSTO:'.- NEW YORK CHICAGO 

ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 



WEST'S HISTORIES 
]2mo, cloth, numerous maps, plans, and illustrations 



THE ANCIENT WORLD 

THE MODERN WORLD 

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

AMERICAN HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 

SOURCE BOOK IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

THE STORY OF MAN'S EARLIER PROGRESS 

THE STORY OF MODERN PROGRESS 



II105 



COPYRIGHT, 1920, 
BY WILLIS MASON WEST. 



MA( -4 iy^G 



Norioooti IprrBB 

J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



(g)CI.A565778 



FOREWORD 

My Modern History, of eighteen years ago, and its successor, 
The Modern World, taught insistently, and, for long in rather 
lonely fashion, the perils in Prussian militarism and autocracy. 
In 1902, when worship of Bismarckian "efficiency" was at its 
height in America and England, after presenting details, I ven- 
tured to sum up this matter thus (Modern History, page 477) : 

The story of the making of Germany shows plainly 
enough that the process was one not merely of " blood and 
iron" but also of fraud and falsehood. It is hard to tell the 
story of such gigantic and successful audacity and craft 
without seeming to glorify it. . . . Bismarck's success 
has tended too, probably, to lower the tone of international 
morality ; and his policy of fraud and violence has left to 
Germany a legacy of burning questions which will grieve 
it long. The rule of the drill-sergeant and of the police 
officer, the hostility to the Empire felt by the Danes of 
Sleswig and the French of Alsace-Lorraine, the bitter 
jealousy between Prussia and Bavaria, and the immense 
armies of all Europe are among the results of his policy. 
It is too early yet to say that that policy is truly victorious} 

Because of this anti-Prussianism, the book suffered heavily 
in the years before the war from both open and secret pro- 
German attacks. But when the war came, no hurried revision 
was necessary to justify the volume to American schools. Nor 
is any change of attitude on these matters needed now. 

1 July 9, 1918, when the last German drive was still at its high tide of 
success, and Haig was fighting almost despairingly, "with our backs to the 
wall," the Kolnische Zeitung, in an exultant editorial, quoted this paragraph, 
and added : 

"Don't think you are listening to Lloyd George or Wilson delivering one 
of their speeches dripping with hypocritical morality. No, this stuff is in 
a schoolbook of that country which we believed friendly to us ! Here are the 
roots of hatred to Germany. . . . We must change all this after the war." 

iii 



IV FOREWORD 

But in all history textbooks there is now needed a change 
of emphasis and of distribution of time. The past six years 
bulk big ; and they throw searching light back over earlier 
years. For purposes of instruction, we must re-inventory all 
recent history. High-school classes will wish to give to the 
period since 1871 double the time which has been given here- 
tofore. That means we must cut down somewhere else. The 
new two-book series, of which this is one volume, meets this 
need by moving forward several centuries the point at which 
serious study of Modern history is to begin. 

At the same time, the Story of Modern Progress is not a 
revision of the Modern JVorld. I have taken glad advantage 
of the chance to write a new book, better suited, I hope, to 
elementary high-school students; and I have used the treat- 
ment in the Modem World only when I have found it simpler 
and clearer than any change I could make to-day. 

Throughout, an unusual amount of space is given to English 
history. For American students a knowledge of that history 
is particularly essential. English history gains, however, by 
being presented, not in an insular way, but in its setting in the 
history of the continent of Europe. And time consideration 
makes this method more and more imperative. Seemingly, 
the high-school course in history' must content itself with three 
years. In that case, one year must go to a background of early 
human progress, down to the Reformation or later; a second 
year, to modern progress ; and the third, to American history 
and citizenship. But no such plan can meet the end desired, 
unless particular stress is placed in the second year upon Eng- 
land's part. With such arrangement, it is possible, I believe, 
to teach the valuable lessons of English history more emphati- 
cally, and with almost as much of detail, as in a separate year 
upon that isolated subject. 

In any course, American history is sure of a place by itself. 
That is reason enough for omitting it in this volume, except 
where the connection of events demands its introduction. When 



FOREWORD V 

touched at all here, it is treatetl from the viewpoint of world- 
development, rather than from a restricted American position. 
The colonization of the seventeenth century is presented as 
an expansion of Europe, and especially of England, into New 
Worlds; the "Intercolonial Wars" of the eighteenth century 
are seen as part of the hundred-yiear struggle between France 
and England for world-empire and exclusive markets ; American 
industrial invention in the nineteenth century appears as part 
of the general Industrial Revolution ; the recent advance of 
America into world-polilics is presented as part of the new 
international relations and new trade relations that followed 
the partition of Africa and the opening of the Orient in the 
closing decades of the nineteenth century ; while the domi- 
nant attention given in these pages to America's part in the 
World W^ar, both in Europe and at home, corresponds merely 
to the new significance of our country in world development. 

In my Modern World I gi\'e the first seventh of the book to 
a brief summary of earlier history. This has proved a popular 
and, I am assured, a helpful feature, and I use it again here. 
With the added five hundred years to be covered (including the 
supremely important Renaissance period), this introductory 
survey takes a sixth of the volume. It may be omitted, at the 
discretion of the instructor. If used, it may serve as a review 
of a first-year study. Or it may be used to give at least some 
background in a two-year history course concerned only with 
Modern and American history. Indeed, if high schools do find 
themselves forced to abandon their three-year history courses 
(for part of their students), some such feature in the text on 
Modern history becomes imperative. And even if the intro- 
ductory survey is not used at all in class, it may perhaps still 
be justified as a means of convenient reference for the student. 
I have embodied in it here every historical event to which the 
later pages make any reference. 

Long or short, the high-school course in history must leave 
no chasm between past and present. It must put the student 



VI FOREWORD 

into sympathetic touch with the social movements of to-day. 
It must give him robust interest in the world-struggle between 
democracy and reaction, in the "war upon poverty," in the 
threat of Socialism, and in the promise of labor organization. 
This volume will achieve its purpose if it helps x\merican youth, 
in this way, toward better citizenship. 

Willis Mason West 

. WiNDAGK) Farm 

January 1, 1920 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1L.IST OF Illustrations xi 

List of Maps xv 

INTRODUCTION: A SURVEY OF EARLIER 
PROGRESS 

PERIOD 

I. From Stone Age to Roman Empire .... 1 
II. The Roman World 12 

The two prosperous centuries — the two centuries of 
decUne — Christianity and the Empire. 

III. Merging of Roman and Teuton, 378-815 a.d. . . 27 

Four centuries of confusion — Franks, Mohamme- 
dans, and Popes. 

IV. Charlemagne's Empire 46 

V. The Feudal Age, 800-1300 a.d 54 

New barbarian inroads — Britain becomes England 

— Feudalism — Medieval Church — England in the 
Feudal Age — France — Other Lands — the Crusades 

— Rise of Towns — Learning and Art. 

VI. The Close of the Middle Ages, 1300-1520. . . 105 
England and France — the Papacy — Other States 
^Europe politically (the "New Monarchies" and the 
Hapsburg Powers) — the Rena;igsance. 



PART I. AGE OF THE REFORMATION, 1520-1648 

CHAPTER 

I. The Reformation upon the Continent . . .137 

Lutheranism — Calvinism — the Counter-Reforma- 
tion. 

vii 



viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

II. England and the Protestant Movement . . 153 

III. A Century of Religious Wars .... 166 

Spain and the Netherlands — Wars of the French 
Huguenots — the Thirty Years' War in Germany — 
Progress in Science. 

PART II. ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY 

IV. English Industry in 1600 181 

V. Puritan England — under the First Two Stuarts 186 

VI. The Great Rebellion and the Commonwealth . 201 
VII. The Restoration and the Revolution of 1688 . 207 
With excursus on development of cabinet govern- 
ment into the 18th century. 

VIII. Expansion into New Worlds 217 

PART III. THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV AND 
FREDERICK II, 1648-1789 

IX. French Leadership 229 

X. Rise of Russia 235 

XL Prussia in Europe — England in New Worlds 240 

PART IV. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

XII. On the Eve 252 

The Abuses — the Spirit of Change — the Govern- 
ment's Attempts at Reform. 

XIII. The Revolution before Foreign Intervention, 

1789-1791 269 

XIV. The Approach of War — Despots against Peoples 283 
XV. The Revolution in War, 1792-1799 . . .288 

Fall of the Monarchy and the Girondists — 
Jacobin Rule — The Directory. 

XVI. The Rise of Napoleon 305 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



IX 



CHAPTER 

XVII. The Consulate, 1799-1804 . 
XVIII. The French Empire, 1804-1814 . 



PAGE 

310 
314 



PART V. REACTION, 1815-1848 

XIX. The Congress of Vienna 327 

XX. Central Europe to 1820 334 

XXI. The South of Europe — Revolutions of 1820 340 

XXII. France and the Revolutions of 1830 . . 347 

PART VI. ENGLAND AND THE INDUSTRIAL 
REVOLUTION 

XXIII. The Revolution in Methods of Work . . 352 

XXIV. The Revolution in the Lives of the Workers 370 
XXV. The Revolution in Ideas about Government 381 

PART VII. CONTINENTAL EUROPE, 

1848-1871 

XXVI. The Revolution of 1848 385 

In France — in Central Europe (Austrian 
Empire, Germany, Italy). 

XXVII. Western Europe from 1848 to 1871 . . 402 

The Second Empire in France — the Making 
of Italy — the Making of Germany. 



PART VIII. ENGLAND, 1815-1914 

XXVIII. The "First Reform Bill," 1832 

XXIX. Political Reform in the Victorian Age 

XXX. Social Reform in the Victorian Age 

XXXI. England and the Irish Question 

XXXII. English Colonies and Dependencies 

XXXIII. Recent Reform in England to 1914 



425 
439 
450 
460 
465 
478 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTEK 

XXXIV. 



PART IX. WESTERN EUROPE, 1871-1914 

PAGE 

France : Close of the Franco-Prussian War 485 



XXXV. Establishment of the Third Republic, 1871 

1879 

XXXVI. France under the Third Republic, to 1914 

XXXVII. The German Empire, 1871-1918 . 

XXXVIII. Italy since 1870 

XXXIX. The Small States of Western Europe 

XL. Switzerland 

XLI. Expansion of Europe into Africa and Asia 

XLII. The Promise of a New Age in 1914 . 



490 
495 
503 
525 
529 
546 
552 
560 



PART X. SLAV EUROPE TO 1914 

XLIII. Russia 

XLIV. The Balkans : The Seed-plot for War 



575 
590 



PART XI. THE WAR AND THE NEW AGE 

XLV. Germany Wills the War . . 

XLVI. The First Year, 1914 .... 

XLVII. The Second Year, 1915 

XLVIII. The Third Year, 1916 . . * . 

XLIX. The Fourth Year, 1917 (America Enters) 

L. Last Year of War, 1918 

LI. War Efficiency of Democracies 

LII. The World League and the New Europe 

LIII. The New Age — Healing Forces 

Appendix — Book Lists for High School Libraries 
Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 



599 
614 
620 
634 
638 
650 
664 
674 
695 

703 
709 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Stone Fist-hatchet .... 3 

Stages in Firemaking ... 3 

Sphinx and Pyramids ... 4 
Egyptian Noble Hunting 

Waterfowl 5 

Cretan Writing of 2200 B.C. 6 
Cretan Cooking Utensils of 

2200 B.c 7 

Assyrian Colossal Man-beajt 8 
The Hermes of Praxiteles . . 9 
The Acropolis of Athens "Re- 
stored" 11 

A Roman Chariot Race . . 12 

Roman Aqueduct near Nlmes 13 
Remains of Greek Temple at 

Paestum 14 

Court of the House of Vetii at 

Pompeii 16 

German Bodyguard of Marcus 

Aurelius - — a detail from a 

triumphal column .... 20 
Remains of a Roman Villa near 

Tivoli 21 

Agricviltural Serfs in Roman 

Gaul 23 

Serfs Making Bread in Roman 

Gaul 23 

Roman Coins of the Empire . 24 

Jerusalem To-day .... 26 

Silver Coin of Justinian . . 30 

St. Sophia, Constantinople . 31 
Preliminary to a Judicial 

Combat 32 

Trial by Combat 33 

Seventh Century Wooden Villa 

in Gaul (a "restoration") 35 



PAGE 

' Abbey of Citeaux 36 

Monks in Field Work ... 37 

Repast of a Prankish Noble . 38 

Mosque of El Azhar at Cairo 40 
Church of St. John Lateran at 

Rome 43 

Cloisters of St. John Lateran 44 

Seal of Charlemagne ... 46 
Servingman with Lamp, time 

of Charlemagne .... 47 

Silver Coin of Charlemagne . 49 

Conway Castle 54 

St. Martin's, near Canterbury 57 

Drawbridge and Portcullis . 60 

Bodiam Castle 61 

Knight in Plate Armor ... 62 

An Act of Homage .... 63 

A Baron's Court 64 

Ancient Manor House at 

Melichope 63 

Window of Melichope Manor 

House 65 

Villeins Receiving Directions 66 
Reaper's Cart, Fourteenth 

Century 67 

Peasants' May Day Dance . 68 

Falconry 69 

The Quintain 70 

A Court Fool 71 

Jugglers in the Thirteenth 

Century 72 

Anglo-Saxon Plowing ... 77 
Battle of Hastings — Bayeux 

Tapestry 78 

Norman Doorway, Canter- 
bury Cathedral 79- 



Xll 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Opening Lines of Magna Carta 

— Facsimile 80 

Interior of Hall of Stoke 

Manor House 83 

English Family Dinner, Four- 
teenth Century .... 84 ' 
Jugglers in the Sword Dance . 85 
Window in Mo.sque at Cor- 
dova 89 

A Byzant 90 

Crusader Taking the Vow . 92 

Effigies of Knights Templar . 93 

Siege of a Medieval Town . 95 
Medieval Town Hall, Oude- 

narde 96 

Old Street in Rouen To-day 98 

Medieval Torture by Water . 99 
Interior of Hall of Merchant 

Gild at Dantzig (1300 a.d.) 101 

Salisbury Cathedral .... 102 

Salisbury Cloisters .... 103 
English Lady, Fourteenth 

Century 105 

French Dress in Fourteenth 

Century 105 

A Bombard, Sixteenth Cen- 
tury 106 

JohnWyclif 107 

Costly English Carriage, Four- 
teenth Century 109 

Bridge in Rural England, 

Fourteenth Century . . . 110 
The "Good Parliament" of 

1399 112 

A Medieval Battle .... 113 

Joan of Arc at Orleans . . . 114 

Hall of Clothmakers, Ypres . 124 
Illustration from a Fifteenth 

Century Manuscript . . . 127 

St. Mark's, Venice .... 130 

Ducal Palace, Venice . . 131 

St. Peter's, Rome 138 



PAGE 

Village Merrymaking, Six- 
teenth Century 148 

Tewksbury Abbey .... 155 

Sir Thomas More .... 157 

Kenilworth Castle in 1620 . . 160 

Kenilworth Castle To-day . . 161 

Queen Elizabeth 163 

Van Dyck's Charles I ... 194 

Lely's Cromwell 202 

Sir Harry, Vane 204 

Monk and Globe, Thirteenth 

Century 219 

Columbus before Ferdinand 

and Isabella 220 

La Salle Taking Possession of 
the Mississippi Valley for 

France 223 

Francis Drake Knighted by 

Elizabeth 226 

St. Basil's, Moscow .... 236 

Revolutionary Swords Crossed 247 

Voltaire 261 

Fall of the Bastille .... 273 

Bonaparte at Areola .... 306 

The Vendome Column . . . 316 

Napoleon toward the Close . 323 

Napoleon Leaving Moscow . 324 

Farm Tools in 1800 .... 354 

Modern Tractor Plowing . . 355 

Spinning Wheel 356 

Modern Spinning Machinery 357 

A Primitive Loom .... 358 

A Modern Loom 359 

An Early Cotton Gin . . . 360 

Steel Works at Pueblo . . . 363 

Fulton's Clermont .... 364 
First Steam Railway Train in 

America, 1831 365 

Harvesting in 1831 . . . . 366 
Harvesting To-day .... 367 
Time Card of Providence Ma- 
chine Shop, 1848 .... 376 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Xlll 



PAGE 

Joseph Mazzini 400 

"France is Tranquil" (under 

Napoleon III) 405 

Garibaldi's Monument, Turin 411 
Cavour (Desmaisons' Litho- 
graph) 412 

Proclamation of the German 

Empire 423 

Queen Victoria (Landseer) . . 440 

Gladstone 442 

The First Adhesive Postage 

Stamp 453 

Parliament Buildings at West- 
minster 455 

Railway Station at Bombay . 467 

Canadian Parliament Building 473 

Lloyd George in 1909 ... 479 

Thiers (Bonnat) 491 

Bismarck 520 





PAGE 


Sogudal, Norway .... 


542 


Interlaken, Switzerland . . 


548 


Forging a Car Axle To-day 


563 


Shearing Off Steel Slabs . 


564 


Electric Railway Engine . 


565 


The Christ of the Andes . 


573 


Mosque of Suleiman I in 




1914 


617 


Rheims Cathedral 


627 


A German Submarine . 


632 


General Retain Decorating i 




French Soldier .... 


646 


Field Marshal Haig . . . 


647 


John J. Pershing .... 


651 


Ferdinand Foch .... 


658 


Airplanes over San Diego . 


670 


The "Big Four" at Paris . 


680 


Clemenceau Handing Peace 




Terms to German Delegates 


686 



MAPS 



1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 
16. 
17. 
18. 
19. 
20. 
21. 
22. 
23. 
24. 
25. 
26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 

30. 
31. 
32. 
33. 
N, 34. 
35. 



First Homes of Civilization ; Colored .... after 

Persian Empire and Greece ; Colored .... " 

Roman Empire, with Leading Roads ; Colored . . " 

Teutonic Kingdoms on Roman Soil ; Colored . . " 

Europe at the Death of Justinian ; Colored . . facing 

Kingdom of the Merovingians ; Colored ... " 

Europe in the Time of Charlemagne ; Colored . . after 

The Field of Ancient History, to 800 a.d. ..... 

Europe after the Division of Verdun ; Colored . . facing 
England and the Danelaw, 900 a.d. ...... 

Religions of Europe about 1100 a.d. ; Colored . . after 

European Peoples about 900 a.d. ; Colored . . " 

Political Europe about 900 a.d. ; Colored . . . facing 
England and France, 1154-1453 (four maps) ; Colored " 

German Colonization toward the East, 800-1400 ; Colored " 
The Holy Roman Empire, Eleventh Century ; Colored after 

The Eastern Empire, 1000-1200 

Dominions of the Hansa and of the Teutonic Order ; Colored after 
Germany and Italy, 1254-1273 ; Colored . . . facing 

The Ottoman Dominions at Their Greatest Extent 
Southeastern Europe at the Entrance of the Turk ; Colored after 

Swiss Confederacy, 1291-1500 

Germany about 1550 ; Colored ..... after 

Europe under Charles V ; Colored . . . . " 

The Netherlands at the Truce of 1609 

Territorial Changes of the Thirty Years' War ; Colored facing 
French Posts in America in the 17th Century ; Colored " 

English America, 1660-1690 ; Colored. ... 

European Possessions in America at Different Periods, to 1763 
(three maps) ; Colored ...... facing 

Prussia at the Death of Frederick II 
Europe, 1740-1789; Colored 



Europe in 1802 
Europe in 1810 
Europe in 1815 



Colored 
Colored 
Colored 



Germanic Confederation, 



1815-1867 ; 

XV 



Colored 



facing 



after 



PAGE 

4 

8 

14 

28 

31 

38 

48 

51 

54 

58 

74 

82 

83 

85 

87 

88 

91 

98 

118 

120 

120 

122 

140 

144 

169 

177 

224 

227 

245 
248 
249 
310 
323 
330 
336 



XVI 



MAPS 



36. Races of Austria-Hungary, about 1850 ;. Colored . facing 393 ' 

37. Prussia, 1815-1867 419 

38. The German Empire of 1871 ; Colored . . . after 506 

39. Africa in 1914; Colored "" 552 

40. World Powers in 1914; Colored " 558 ' 

41. The Balkan States, 1878-1881 ; Colored . . . facing 593 ,- 

42. The Balkan States, 1912-1913 597 ' 

43. Europe in 1914; Colored after 608 f 

44. Kingdom of Italy, 1860 and 1919 623 - 

45. Losses of Russia at Brest-Litovsk ...... 654 , 

46. "Mittel-Europa," March, 1918 655 

47. 'The West Front: German Lines, July 15. November 10, 1918 . 657 

48. Central Europe in 1919 . .678 



THE STORY OF MODERN PROGRESS 

" The chief interest in history lies in the fact that it is not yet finished " 

A BKIEF SURVEY OF EAKLIER PROaRESS 



FIRST PERIOD 

FROM STONE AGE TO ROMAN EMPIRE 

November 11, 1918, at an early morning hour, the representa- 
tives of Germany accepted the terms of armistice dictated by 
Marshal Foch, commander-in-chief of the Allies. Within three 
hours, nearly every steam whistle in America was sounding the 
glad tidings of Germany's surrender. Only a few miles from Gen- 
eral Foch's headquarters where the armistice was signed is the 
city of Ghent. There, about a hundred years before (December Rapid 

14, 1814), a peace was signed between England and the United ^^^P^e 
o Ti I J" • • dunng the 

States. But almost four weeks after the signing of that peace, last century 

many gallant lives were sacrificed in the Battle of New Orleans 
because the news of Ghent had not reached America. Indeed, the 
War of 1812 would not have been fought except for misunder- 
standings which steamships and electric cables would have 
cleared up promptly. 

In everyday matters, too, the changes of the last hundred years 
or so are quite as marked. When George Washington journeyed 
from Mount Vernon to New York, in 1789, to take up his duties 
as President, he made the wearisome twelve-day trip on horse- 
back. At Philadelphia he might have taken the slow, jolting 
stage-coach for the rest of the way ; but both for speed and 
comfort, he chose to keep to his horse. To-day we make that 

1 



2 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

journey in a night, resting in a cosy compartment of a sleeper 

or reading at ease by brilliant electric lamps. 

The tallow candle and the pine-knot fire on the hearth were 

the best artificial lights in the days of Washington. Abraham 

Lincoln knew no better light until late in his life, when kerosene 

lamps came into use. No woman in Lincoln's presidency ever 

cooked by a gas range, and no woman in Washington's time 

ever cooked by any sort of iron stove. Washington was one 

of the leading farmers of his day ; but a wooden plow and a 

clumsy harrow were the only farm machinery drawn by horses 

that he ever saw. Even the small reapers and threshers of 

Lincoln's time are now fit only for some museum of curiosities. 

Carpenters and masons now work eight hours a day ; but until 

long after Washington's day no laborer ever dreamed of working 

less than fourteen hours in summer — and he worked for a much 

smaller wage than our workmen for our shorter laboring day. 

The palaces of kings a century ago had fewer actual comforts 

and conveniences than the modest homes of well-paid laborers 

to-day. 

Like change, At first it is hard to understand that such changes had been 

though going on.for long ages before Lincoln and Washington. Twenty 

during two thousand years ago no one traveled even in Washington's way. 

hundred There were no coaches, for no one had found how to make a 
centunes 

wheel ; and, though the wild horse was hunted for food, no one 

had tamed it. Indeed there was no need to travel. No man 
could possibly want to go from the Potomac to the Hudson. If 
two men living a score of miles apart met at all, the stronger 
killed and plundered the weaker. 

History is the story of human -progress from that early sav- 
agery to our present civilization. 

Early The first men were more helpless and brutelike than the 

savagery ^ lowest savages in the world to-day. They had neither fire nor 

knife ^ no tools or weapons except their hands, their formidable 

teeth, and chance clubs or stones. The first marked gain was 

the discovery by some savage that he could chip off flakes from 



FROM STONE TO BRONZE 



a flint stone by striking it in a certain way with other stones, 
so as to give it a sharp edge and a convenient shape for the 
hand to grasp. This invention Hfted man into the Stone Age. 

Remains in the soil 
show us that men be- 
gan to use stone tools 
at least 100,000 years 
ago. The earliest re- 
mains often lie buried 
deep under layers of 
earth deposits that con- 
tain the different sorts 
of tools of succeeding 
ages. In general, the 
tools in the upper 
layers are better than 
those in the lower ones ; 
and so by studying 
these relics, from the 
bottom layers upward, 
we can trace something 
of the order of man's 
development in those uncounted thousands of years in which 
our forefathers were learning to take the first stumbling steps 
up from savagery. 




Stone Fist-hatchet found in Suabia. — 
Now in the British Museum. 




Some Stages in Fihemaking. — From Tylor. 

Five gains during the long Stone Age were beyond price : 
the use of fire ; the beginning of language ; the taming of the 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Gains in 
the Stone 
Age 

The 

Bronze Age 
in the 
Orient 



dog, cow, sheep, and other famihar barnyard assistants ; the 
discovery of wheat, barley, rice, and most of our other Old- 
World food-plants ; and the invention of picture-writing. 

Some seven thousand years ago, in the valleys of the Nile 
and the Euphrates, men learned in some way to replace their 
stone tools with better bronze tools, and soon to improve picture- 




.Sphinx, with Pyramids in the distance ; ancient Egyptian works. — 
From a photograph. The human head of the Sphinx is supposed to 
have the magnified features of an Egyptian king. It is set upon the 
body of a lion — a symbol of power. One of the pyramids covers 13 acres 
and rises 481 feet in height, — the largest and most massive building in 
the world to-day. It contains two million huge stone blocks, some of 
which singly weigh more than fifty tons. 



writing into the rebus stage so that a picture might stand for 
a syllable, or for a group of sounds, instead of for an object. 
Then a connected story could be told in writing — and so true 
history began. 

These Bronze-age Egyptians and Babylonians practiced 
many arts and crafts with skill of hand that has never been sur- 



FROM STONE TO BRONZE 5 

passed. They built great cities, with pleasant homes for the 
wealthy and with splendid palaces for their princes. They 
built, too, roads and canals. With ships and caravans, they 
sought out the treasures ofj^j^j^ CCCC XXIII 
distant regions; and the wealth ^ ^ "T ^(S©(Sn I' 
they heaped up was spent by E^yp^^^ ^^^ ro^an Numerals. 
their rulers in gorgeous pomp 

and splendor. Our "year" of 365^ days, with the division 
into months, comes to us from the Egyptians through the 
Romans, as do also the sundial and water-clock. Through 




Egyptian Noble hunting Waterfowl with a " throw-stick " or boomer- 
ang. The wife accompanies her husband, and the boat contains also a 
" decoy " bird. The wild birds rise from a mass of papyrus reeds. — 
From an Egyptian tomb painting. 

the Hebrews, the Babylonians gave us the week, with its And some 
"seventh day of rest for the soul," and the subdivision of the °^J^^ 
day into hours and minutes. They invented also an excellent 



6 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Bronze 
culture 
spread by 
Phoenicians 



Persians 

and 

Hebrews 



system of weights, and measures based on the length of the 
hand and foot. They had a system of counting in which they 
used 12 and 60 as we use 10 and 100. The face of a watch 
to-day, with its divisions by twelve and by sixty, recalls their 
work, — as do also the measurement of a circle by degrees, 
minutes, and seconds ; the curious figures on our star maps ; 

the signs of the zodiac in 
our almanacs; the sym- 
bols of our "apothecaries' 
table," still used by physi- 
cians; some of our fairy 
stories, like that of Cinder- 
ella ; many of our carpen- 
ters' tools ; and much of 
our common kitchen ware. 
War and trade spread 
this "bronze" culture 
slowly around the eastern 
coasts of the Mediterran- 
ean ; and, before 1500 b.c, 
Cretan and Phoenician mer- 
chants scattered its seeds 
widely in even more distant 
regions with a contribu- 
tion of l^eir own infinitely 
important. The commerce of these peoples made it needful 
for them to keep complicated accounts, and to communicate 
with agents in distant places ; and so, out of the crude earlier 
systems of rebus writing, both Cretans and Phoenicians devel- 
oped real alphabets. 

About 630 B.C. all these precious beginnings of civilization 
were imperiled by hordes of savages that poured forth from 
the frozen plains of Scythia in the North. Persia repulsed the 
ravagers, and saved the slow gains of the ages. At the same 
time, she conquered all the civilized East, and united it under 
an effective system of government. And finally, toward the close 




Cretan Writing of 2200 b.c. — Some of 
the characters are plainly numerals. 
Others are much like certain later 
Greek letters. "' , 



THE GREEKS 7 

of these four thousand years of "Oriental history" there grew 
up among the Hebrews a pure ivorship whose truth and grandeur 
were, to influence profoundly the later world. For centuries 
more, however, this religion was the possession of one small 
people. 

Now, happily, appeared the Greeks, — ; new actors on a new The scene 

stage. About 600 B.C., the center of interest shifted westward 5,^'^*^ *° 
. J J Europe 

from Asia to southeastern Europe. For two thousand years a 




Cooking Utensils found in one tomb at Knossos, Crete, belonging 
about 2200 B.C. 



European culture had been rising slowly along the coasts and 
islands of the Mediterranean, drawing from the East in handi- 
craft, but possessing moral and intellectual traits of its own. 

Oriental states had begun in supremely fertile districts where Greek 

food was almost the free bounty of nature, and where the "viUzation 
... ■ contrasted • 

tropical chmate made most men averse to unnecessary exertion, with 

The few with spirit and energy easily made slaves of the mul- O"®?**)" 

1 "T, , . . physical 

titude. But the sterile soil of Greece demanded more work differences 

from all the people; and its temperate climate encouraged 



8 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Oriental 
submission 
and Greek 
independ- 
ence 



Oriental 

sameness 

and 

European 

diversity 



more general enterprise. Men lived more on a level with one 
another than in the East. The benefits of Oriental culture had 
been for the few only : the benefits of Greek culture were to be for 
the man 11 . 

When an Oriental state had grown by conquest into an em- 
pire, it spread over vast plains and was bounded by terrible 

immensities of desolate 
deserts. Greece was a 
land of intermingled sea 
and mountain, with every- 
thing on a moderate scale. 
There were no deserts. 
No mountains were so as- 
tounding as to awe man. 
There were no destructive 
earthquakes, no tremen- 
dous storms, no over- 
whelming floods. Ori- 
ental men had bowed in 
dread and superstition 
before these terrible and 
destructive forces : they 
had feared to inquire, and 
in all things they accepted 
slavishly the traditions 
of their fathers. But in 
Greece, nature was not 
terrible. There men began early to search into her secrets. In- 
stead of boioing to tradition, the Greeks thought for themselves. 
Instead of submitting to despotism, they governed themselves. 

Greece was broken up into many small districts. Each division 
was protected from conquest by its sea moats and mountain walls ; 
and each, therefore, became the home of a distinct political state. 
Some of these were busied in agriculture ; others, mainly, in trade. 
Some were monarchic in government ; others, democratic. These 
differing societies, side by side, reacted wholesomely upon one another. 




Colossal Man-beast in Alabaster. — 
From an Assyrian palace. (Now in 
the British Museum. The photograph 
shows also part of a series of relief sculp- 
ture, telling a long story, from the walls 
of the same palace.) 



THE GREEKS 



No doubt, too, the moderation and variety and wondrous 
beauty of hill and dale and sun-lit sea had something to do with 
the many-sided genius of the Greek people and with their 
lively but well-controlled imagination. Oriental art was un- 
natural ; it delighted in placing a man's head upon a beast's 
body, mingling the monstrous with the human ; and in archi- 
tecture it sought for colos- 
sal size rather than for pro- 
portion. But above all 
peoples, before or since, 
the Greeks developed a love 
for harmony and propor- 
tion; and their art sought 
for beauty in simplicity 
and naturalness. 

In sculpture, architec- 
ture, drama, oratory, 
poetry, and philosophy, 
the Greeks rank still among 
the world's masters. The 
Oriental contributions to 
the future had been chiefly 
material : the Greek contri- 
butions were intellectual and 
spiritual. Above all, the 

Greeks gave us the ideal of freedom regulated by self-control, 
— freedom in politics, in religion, and in thought. 

Moreover, this Greek civilization is essentially one with our own. 
The remains of Egyptian or Babylonian sculpture and archi- 
tecture arouse our interest as curiosities ; but they are foreign 
to us. With a Greek temple or a Greek poem we feel at home. 
It might have been built or written by an American. Our 
most beautiful buildings use the Greek columns and capitals ; 
and some, in spite of our different climate, are copied almost 
wholly from Greek models. Our children still delight in the 
stories that the blind Greek Homer chanted ; and the historian 



Oriental 
and 
Greek art 




The Hermes of Praxiteles. — Praxite- 
les was one of the most famous Greek 
sculptors. This statue of the god 
Hermes is sadly mutilated, but the 
head and torso are among the finest 
remains of Greek art. 



10 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Defects in 

Greek 

culture 



Still goes for his model to the Greek Herodotus, " the father of 
history." 

Four weak points remained in this dazzling Greek civiliza- 
tion: (1) It rested on slavery. (2) It was for males only: 
at best, the wife was only a higher domestic servant. (3) The 
moral side fell far below the intellectual side. Religion had 
little to do with conduct toward men. Some Greek philoso- 
phers taught lofty morality ; but, on the whole, while no other 
society ever produced so large a proportion of great men, many 
societies have produced more good men. (4) Brilliant as was 
the Greek mind, it did not discover the modern method of 
finding out the secrets of nature by experiment. Consequently 
it did little to- increase msfn's power over natural forces, and so 
could not produce wealth enough to go around. 



Sreece 

and 

Persia 



Leadership 
shifts west 
to Rome 



About 500 B.C., the rising Greek culture was threatened with 
conquest by Persia; but at Marathon and Salamis the little 
Greek states heroically repelled the huge Asiatic empire, and 
saved Western civilization. Two centuries later, through the 
genius of Alexander the Great, the Greeks tvelded East and West 
into a Graeco-Oriental world. 

But in the end the vast sluggish East would have absorbed 
the small Greek element, had not the latter found reinforcement 
from another European land. Now, happily, the leadership in 
human progress shifts westward once more — to Rome. 

Rome was the central city of Italy, the central Mediter- 
ranean land. It began as a village of shepherds and farmers. 
Partly through advantages in geography, more through genius 
in war, most of all through a marvelous power of organization, 
it had grown step by step into the headship of Italy, and was 
ready now to march on to the lordship of the world. First, 
it gave a Latin civilization to the western Mediterranean coasts; 
and then, a century before the birth of Christ, it unified new 
West and old East into a Graeco-Roman world. 

As Greece stands for art and intellectual culture, so Rome 
stands for law and government. The Greeks, aside from their 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 



11 



own contributions to civilization, had collected the arts and Rome's 
sciences of the older peoples of the Orient. Rome preserved "*°*"''"- 
this common treasure of mankind, and she herself added legal and 
political institutions that have influenced all later time. 

Still, with all her genius for government, Rome did not hit 
upon our modern plan of representative government. Until 
this plan was discovered, government had to be exercised, at 
best, by those who could meet at one spot. Since this was 
practicable only for a city or a small district, a large state 
could not then remain a free state. While Rome was uniting Failure of 
Italy, she was a free city-republic. She succeeded in expanding !|*® Roman 
this form of government so that it met fairly well the needs of 
united Italy ; but it broke down before the needs of a wide- 
spread subject world. For a century the government of the 
ruling city became merely the agent of a selfish moneyed aris- 
tocracy which looted the dependent provinces. Then, a little 
before the birth of Christ, Julim- Caesar and his successors 
swept away the outgrown "Republic," and introduced the "Em- 
pire," with the emperor as the despotic but beneficent father 
of the whole Graeco-Roman world. 



^H 


■P^^H 


H 





A " Restoration" (by Lambert) of the Athenian Acropolis, at first 
a citadel, later the "holy hill," crowned by statues and temples of 
gleaming white marble which are still peerless in loveliness. 




A Roman Chakiot Race. — A modern imaginative painting. 



SECOND PERIOD 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE 



Life under 
the Empire 
concen- 
trated in 
" muni- 
cipia " 



The Roman Empire is the central lake in which all the streams of an- 
cient history lose themselves, and which all the streams of modern history 
flow out of. — Freeman 

The Roman world was a broad belt of land stretching east 
and west, from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, with the Mediter- 
ranean for its central highway. On the south it was bounded 
by sandy deserts, African and Arabian ; on the north, by stormy 
waters, — the North Sea, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Black 
Sea. Within its vast territory, about as large as the United 
States, were 75,000,000 people. They lived mostly in cities 
(municipia) large and small, throbbing with industry and with 
intellectual life and possessing some local self-government in 
those municipal institutions they were to pass on to us. Gaul 
(France) was Romanized late, after Julius Caesar; but in the 
third century a.d. that district had 116 flourishing cities, with 
public baths, temples, aqueducts, roads, and famous schools 
that drew Roman youth even from the Tiber's banks. 

Most towns were places of 20,000 people or less, and usually 
each one was merely the center of a farming district ; but there 
were also a few great centers of trade, — Rome, with perhaps 
2,000,000 people ; Alexandria (in Egypt) and Antioch (in Asia) 

12 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE 



13 



with 500,000 each ; and Corinth, Carthage, Ephesus, and Lyons, 
with some 250,000 apiece. 

These commercial cities were likewise centers of manufac- 
tures. The Emperor Hadrian visited Alexandria (about 125 
A.D.) and wrote in a letter : "No one is idle ; some work glass ; 
some make paper (papyrus) ; some weave linen. Money is 

the only god." The looms of Sidon and the other old Phoenician industry 

and 
trade 




Roman Aqueduct near Nimes, France : present condition. — From a photo- 
graph. This structure was built by the Emperor Antoninus Pius, about 
150 A.D., to bring water from distant mountain springs. Some of these 
Roman aqueducts remained in use until recent days. 

cities turned forth ceaselessly their precious purple cloths. 
Miletus, Rhodes, and other Greek cities of the Asiatic coast 
were famous for their woolen manufactures. Syrian factories 
poured silks, costly tapestries, and fine leather into western 
Europe. The silversmiths of Ephesus were numerous enough 
{Acts, xix, 23-41) to stir up a formidable riot. 

The roads were safe. Piracy ceased from the seas, and trade 
flourished as it was not to flourish again until the days of Co- 



14 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

Communica lumbus. The ports were crowded with shipping, and the 

tion by sea Mediterranean was spread with happy sails. The grand mili- 
and land . , ,. 

tary roads ran in trunk-hnes — a thousand miles at a stretch 

— from every frontier toward the central heart of the empire, 
with a dense network of branches in every province. Guide- 
books described routes and distances. Inns abounded. The 
imperial couriers that hurried along the great highways passed 




Remains of a Greek Temple at Paestum in Italy. i i.>ia a photograph. 
Before 800 B.C. many Greek colonies had been established in Sicily and 
southern Italy, so that these districts were long known as " Great Greece " 
(Magna Graecia). These Italian Greek.s taught Rome much before her 
rule reached outside of Italy. 

a hundred and fifty milestones a day. The products of one 
region of the empire were known in every other part. Jewelry 
made in Asia Minor was worn by women in the Swiss moun- 
tains ; and Italian wines were drunk in Britain and in Cilicia. 
Private travel from the Thames to the Euphrates was swifter, 
safer, and more comfortable than ever again until the age of 
railroads, less than a century ago. 

There was also a vast commerce with regions beyond the bound- 




Longitade West 



10 LongitTide 15 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE 15 

aries of the empire. As English and Dutch traders, three hun- 
dred years ago, journeyed far into the savage interior of America 
for better bargains in furs, so the indomitable Roman traders 
pressed on into regions where the Roman legions never camped. 
From the Baltic shores they brought back amber, furs, and 
flaxen German hair with which the dark Roman ladies liked to 
adorn their heads. Such goods the trader bought cheaply with 
toys and trinkets and wine. A Latin poet speaks of "many 
merchants" who reaped "immense riches" by daring voyages 
over the Indian Ocean "to the mouth of the Ganges." India, 
Ceylon, and Malaysia sent to Europe indigo, spices, pearls, 
sapphires, drawing away, in return, vast sums of Roman gold 
and silver. And from shadowy realms beyond India came 
the silk yarn that kept the Syrian looms busy. Chinese annals 
tell of Roman traders bringing to Canton glass and metal 
wares, amber, and drugs. 

Literature and learning flourished. It is impossible here The uni 
even to mention the great numbers of poets, historians, essay- ^®'^^' **^ 
ists, philosophers, and other writers who made glorious the 
Early Empire. The three great centers of learning were Rome, 
Alexandria, and Athens. In these cities there were universities, 
as we would call them now, with vast libraries (of manuscripts), 
and with many professorships supported by the government. 

Morals grew gentle, and manners were refined. The Letters Morals 
of the author Pliny reveal a society high-minded, refined, and g^Jj^e 
virtuous. Pliny himself is a type of the finest gentleman of 
to-day in delicacy of feeling, sensitive honor, and genial courtesy. 
The Emperor Marcus Aurelius shows like qualities on the 
throne. The philosopher Epictetus shows them in a slave. 

Woman secured more freedom and more intellectual culture Woman's 

than she was to find again until the nineteenth century. The position 

, ° . *' improved 

profession of medicine was open to her. She became the equal 

of man before the law, and his companion, not his servant, in 

the home. 

Sympathies broadened. The unity of the vast Roman world 

prepared the way for the thought that all men are brothers. 



16 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



More hu- 
mane law 



Said Marcus Aurelius, " As emperor I am a Roman ; but as a 
man my city is the world." The age prided itself, justly, upon 
its progress and its hvuiianity, much as our own does. The 
Emperor Trajan instructed a pro\incial governor not to act 
upon anommous accusations, because such conduct " does not 




Part of the Court of a Private Residence at Pompeii — llw House of 
the Vetii. The Roman city, Pompeii, was overwhelmed by an eruption of 
ashes and volcanic mud from Vesuvius in 80 a.d. Recent excavation 
enables a modern visitor to walk through the streets of an ancient city in 
almost perfect preservation. The shrubbery in this court, of course, is not 
" ancient" ; but probably the court originally contained shrubbery much 
like this. 

belong to our age." There was a vast amovmt of private and 
public charity, with homes for orphans and hospitals for the poor. 
This broad humanity was reflected in imperial law. The 
harsh law of the Republic became humane. Women, children, 
and even dumb beasts shared its protection. Torture was 
limited. The rights of the accused were better recognized. 
From the Empire dates the maxim, " Better to let the guilty 
escape than to punish the innocent." "All men by the law of 



FIRST CENTURIES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 17 

nature are equal" became a law maxim, through the great 
jurist Ulpian. Slavery, he argued, had been created only by 
the lower law, enacted not by nature but by man. Therefore, 
if one man claimed another as his slave, the benefit of any 
possible doubt was to be given to the one so claimed. (It is 
curious to remember that the rule was just the other way in 
nearly all Christian countries through the Middle Ages, and in 
the United States under the Fugitive Slave laws from 1793 to 
the Civil War.) 

This widespread, happy society rested in " the good Roman Peace and 
peace" for more than two hundred years, — from the reign PJ'ospenty 
of Augustus Caesar through that of Marcus Aurelius, or from years 
31 B.C. to 192 A.D. No other part of the world so large has 
ever known such unl)roken prosperity and such freedom from 
the waste and horror of war for so long a time. Few troops 
were seen within the empire, and " the distant clash of arms 
[with barbarians] on the Euphrates or the Danube scarcely 
disturbed the tranquillity of the Mediterrane&,n lands." 

A few of the emperors at Rome, like Nero and Caligula, 
were weak or wicked ; but their follies and vices concerned 
only the nobles of the Capital. The empire as a whole went 
on with little change during their short reigns. To the vast 
body of the people of the Roman world, the crimes of an occa- 
sional tyrant were unknown. To them he seemed (like the 
good emperors) merely the symbol of the peace and prosperity 
which enfolded them. 

In language, and somewhat in culture, the West remained Unity of 
Latin, and the East,^ Greek; but trade, travel, and the mild *°« ^o™*'^ 
and just Roman law made the world one in feeling. Briton, 
African, Asiatic, knew one another only as Romans. An 
Egyptian Greek of the period expressed this world-wide patri- 
otism in a noble ode, closing, — 

"Though we tread Rhone's or Orontes' ^ shore, 
Yet are we all one nation evermore." 

1 The Adriatic may be taken as a convenient line of division. 
» A river of Asia Minor. 



18 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Decline in 
the third 
century 



Reorgani- 
zation by 
Diocletian 



But this picture had a darker side. During some reigns the 
court was rank with hideous debauchery, and at all times the 
rabble of Rome, made up of the off-scourings of all peoples, 
was ignorant and vicious. Some evil customs that shock us 
were part of the age. To avoid cost and trouble, the lower 
classes, with horrible frequency and indifference, exposed their 
infants to die. Satirists, as in our own day, railed at the growth 
of divorce among the rich. Slavery threw its shadow across 
the Roman world. At the gladiatorial sports — so strong is 
fashion — delicate ladies thronged the benches of the amphi- 
theater without shrinking at the agonies of the dying. 

The really hopeless feature was the absence of liberty. The 
Rom,an world, in this first period, was happy, contented, 
prosperous, well-governed, but not free; and even its virtues 
had something of a servile tone. Moreover, great landlords 
were crowding the small farmers off the land, and that yeo- 
man class were giving way to slave or serf tillers of the soil. 

And so the third century began a period of swift decline. 
For a time despotism had served as a medicine for anarchy 
(p. 11), but now its poison began to show. Weak or vicious 
rulers followed one another in ruinous succession. The throne 
became the sport of the soldiery. Ninety-two years (193-284 
A.D.) saw twenty-seven "barrack emperors" set up by the army, 
and all but four were slain in some revolt. 

After this century of misery, the stern soldier, Diocletian 
(284-305), grandson of an Illyrian slave, grasped the scepter 
with a firm hand, restored order, and re-shaped the govern- 
ment. For more convenient administration, he divided the 
Roman world into an East and a West, along the dividing 
lines between the old Greek and Latin civilizations; and each 
half he subdivided again and again into units of several grades 
— praefectures, dioceses, provinces. To care for these divisions, 
he then created a series of officers in regular grades, as in an 
army. Each was placed under the immediate direction of the 
one just above him, and the lines all converged from below to 
the emperor. Each official sifted all business that came to him 



DECAY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 



19 



Excursus : 
" Central- 
ization ". 
and " Abso- 
lutism " 



from his subordinates, and sent on to his superior only the more 
important matters. The earlier, loosely organized despotism 
had become a vast centralized despotism, a highly complex 
machine, which fixed responsibility precisely and distributed 
duties in a workable way. 

It is desirable for students to discuss in class more fully 
some of these forms of government of which the text treats. 
"Absolutism" refers to the source of supreme power: in a 
system of absolutism, supreme power is in the hands of one 
person. "Centralization" refers to the kind of administra- 
, tiou. A centralized administration is one carried on by a 
body of officials of many grades, all appointed from above. 
Absolutism and centralization do not necessarily go together. 
A government may come from the people, and yet rule 
through a centralized administration, as in France to-day. 
It may be absolute, and yet allow much freedom to local 
agencies, as in Russia in past centuries. 

Under a great genius, like Napoleon the First, a cen- 
tralized government may for a time produce rapid benefits. 
But the system always decays. It does nothing to educate 
the people politically. Local self-government is often provok- 
ingly slow and faulty, but it is surer in 'the long run. 

The fourth century showed outward prosperity, but this Crushing 
appearance was deceitful. The system of Diocletian warded off ^^'1 
invasion: but its own weight was crushing. The Empire had cratic 
become " a great tax-gathering and barbarian-fighting machine." despotism 
It collected taxes in order to fight barbarians. But the time came 
when the people feared the tax collector more than the bar- 
barians, as the complex government came to cost more and 
more. About 400 a.d., the Empire began to crumble before 
barbarian attacks less formidable than many that had been 
rebuffed in early centuries. Secret forces had been sapping the 
strength and health of the Roman world. 

1. Population had ceased to advance, and even fell away. 
A series of terrible Asiatic plagues swept off vast numbers ; 



20 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Decline of 
population : 
slavery 



Peaceful 
infusion 
of bar- 
barians 



b.ut the causes of permanent decay were within Roman society. 
The main cause, probably, was the widespread sla\e system. 
The wealthy classes of society do not have large families. Our 
population to-da^' grows mainly from the working class. But 
in the Roman empire the place of free workingmen was taken 
mainly by slaves. Slaves rarely had families; and if they 
had, the master commonly "exposed" slave children to die, 
since it was easier and cheaper to buy a new slave, from 
among captive barbarians, than to rear one. Besides, the 
competition of slave labor ground into the dust what free 




A German Bodyguard oF" Marcus Aurelius. — A detail from a column 
commemorating the campaigns of that emperor against untamed Ger- 
mans, about 1X0 a.d. 

labor there was ; so that free working people could not afford 
to raise large families, but were driven to the cruel practice 
of exposing their infants. Year after year, "the human har- 
vest was bad." 

2. One measure helped fill up the gaps in population. 
This was the introduction of barbarians from without. The 
Roman army had long been mostly made up of Germans ; 
and whole provinces were settled by them, before their kinsmen 
from without, in the fifth century, began in earnest to break 
over the Rhine. Conquered barbarians had been settled, 
hundreds of thousands at a time, in frontier provinces ; and 
whole friendly tribes had been admitted into depopulated 



DECAY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 



21 



districts. But all this had a danger of its own : the barrier 
between the empire and its assailants was melting away. 

3. The classes of society were becoming fixed. At the top Approach 
was the emperor. At the bottom were peasantry, artisans, *° ^ *^*^*® 
and slaves, to produce food and wealth wherewith to pay taxes. 
Between were two aristocracies, — a small imperial nobility 
of great landlords, and an inferior local nobility in each city. 







^^Spk^'^^^L^KJ 






HPj^ «. SHMBBBm^^^^^^^H 


H^^^JMIPfv^^H 



Remains of the Library of a Roman Villa near Tivoli. Walls so extensive 
and well preserved are not common, but the foundations of such struc- 
tures are scattered widely over Western Europe, and new finds of this 
sort are not uncommon even to-day on the scene of new excavations. 

The landlord nobles had many special privileges. Through "Privilege" 
their influence upon the government and by bribery of officials ° * ^®** 
they escaped most of the burden of taxation — which they 
were better able to bear than the unhappy classes that paid. 
Besides his town house, each landlord had one or more costly 
coimtry houses, or villas, with all the comforts of the city — 
baths, museums, libraries, mosaic pavements, richly gilded 
ceilings, walls hung with brilliant tapestries, and sideboards 



22 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

beautiful with vases and gold and silver plate. About the 
house spread extensive parklike grounds, with ornamental 
shrubbery and playing fountains and with glorious marble 
statues gleaming through the foliage, and perhaps with fish 
ponds and orchards. 

Commonly a villa was the center of a large farm ; and its 
magnificent luxury found a sinister contrast in the squalid 
huts, leaning against the villa walls, in which slept the wretched 
herds of slaves that tilled the soil. Near by, in somewhat better 
quarters, lived the more skilled artisans — carpenters, smiths, 
bakers — while troops of household slaves slept on the floors 
of the large halls or in the open courts of the central mansion. 
The smaller The local nobility (curials) were the families of the senate 
nobility pi^ss in their respective cities. They, too, had some special 

privileges. They could not be drafted into the army or sub- 
jected to bodily punishment. They were compelled, however, 
to undergo great expenses in connection with the offices they 
had to fill. And, in particular, they were made responsible 
for the collection of the imperial taxes in their districts. 

This burden finally became so crushing that many curials 
tried desperately to evade it, — even by sinking into a lower 
class, or by flight to the barbarians. Then, to secure the reve- 
nue, law made them an hereditary class. They were forbidden 
to become clergy, soldiers, or lawyers; they were not allowed 
to move from one city to another, or even to travel without 
permission. 
The old Between these local nobles and the artisan class, there had 

middle class bp^n^ in the day of the Early Empire, a much larger middle 
class of small landowners, merchants, bankers, and professional 
men. This middle class had now almost disappeared. Some 
were compelled by law to take up the duties of the vanishing 
curials. More, in the financial ruin of the period, sank into 
the working class. 
The artisans The condition of artisans had become desperate. An edict of 
Diocletian's regarding prices and wages shows that a work- 
man received not more than one-tenth the wages of an Ameri- 



DECAY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 



23 




Serfs in Roman Gaul. 



can workman of like grade, while food and clothing cost at 
least one-third as much as in our time. His family rarely knew 
the taste of eggs or fresh meat. And 
now the law forbade him to change 
his trade. 

The peasantry had become serfs. 
That is, they were bound to their 
labor on the soil, and changed 
masters with the land they tilled. 
When the Empire began,, free 
small-farmers were growing fewer, 
over much of the realm, while great estates, managed by stewards 
and tilled by slaves, were growing more numerous. Grain cul- 
ture decreased, and large areas of land ceased to be tilled. To 
help remedy this state of affairs, and to keep up the food 

supply, the emperors in- 
troduced a new class of 
hereditary farm laborers. 
After successful wars, they 
. gave large numbers of bar- 
barian captives to great 
landlords, — thousands in 
a batch, — not as slaves, 
but as serfs. 

The serfs were really 
given not to the landlord, 
but to the land. They 
were not personal property, 
as slaves were. They were 
part of the real estate. They, 
and- their children after 
them, were attached to the 
soil, and could not be sold 
off it. They had some 
They could contract a legal 
marriage, and each had his own plot of ground, of which he 




Breadmaking by Serfs in Roman 
Gaul. 

rights which slaves did not have. 



24 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



l4ck of 
money 



could not be dispossessed so long as he paid to the landlord a 
fixed rent in labor and in produce. 

This growth of serfdom made it still more difficult for the free 
small-farmer to hold his place. That class more and more sank 
into serfs. On the other hand, many slaves rose into serfdom. 

4. Lack of money was one of the great evils. The empire did 
not have sufficient supplies of precious metals for the demands 
of business ; and what money there was was steadily drained 
away to India and the distant Orient (p. 15). By the fourth 
century this movement had carried away hundreds of millions 
of dollars of coined money. Even the imperial officers were 




Roman Coins of the Empire. 



Many such coins have been found in the 
Orient. 



The Empire 
no longer 
able to 
resist 
outside 
barbarians 



forced to take part of their salaries in produce, — robes, horses, 
grain. Trade began to go back to the primitive form of barter ; 
and it became harder and harder to collect taxes. 

In the third and fourth centuries there were no more great 
poets or men of letters. Learning and patriotism both declined. 
Society began to fall into rigid castes, — the serf bound to his 
spot of land, the artisan to his trade, the curial to his office. 
Freedom of movement was lost. Above all, there was dearth of 
money and dearth of me7i. The Empire had become a shell. 

For jBve hundred years, outside barbarians had been tossing 
wildly about the great natural walls of the civilized world. 
Commonly they had shrunk in dread from any conflict with 
the mighty Roman legions, always on sleepless ward at the 



ROMAN EMPIRE AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH 25 

weaker gaps — along the Rhine, the Danube, the Euphrates. 
Sometimes, it is true, the barbarians had broken through for 
a moment, but altvays to be destroyed promptly by some Roman 
Marius or Caesar. In the fifth century they broke in to stay. 



But meanwhile Christianity had come into the world. The 
supreme service of the dying Empire was to foster this new 
force for human progress. 

For three centuries, it is true, the Empire had despised or per- 
secuted the sect of Christians ; but still the unhy of the Roman 
world made it far easier for the new moral and spiritual teachings 
to spread than if the world had been broken up into a multitude 
of petty, disconnected, hostile states, with little communication 
and with unintelligible dialects. Then, early in the fourth century 
(313 A.D.), under the Emperor Constantine, Christianity be- 
came a tolerated and even a favored religion. Before the close 
of that century it became the state religion ; and its victory 
just at this time enabled it to conquer also the barbarians who 
were soon to conquer the Empire, but who were still eager to 
follow where Rome led. 

The church, too, modeled its marvelously efficient govern- 
ment upon the territorial divisions and the political organization 
of the Empire. As the first missionaries spread out beyond 
Judea and came to a new province, they naturally went first 
to the chief city there. Thus the capital of the province be- 
came the seat of the first church in the district. From this 
mother society, churches spread to the other cities of the 
province, and from each city there sprouted outlying parishes. 

At the head of each parish was a priest, assisted usually by 
deacons and subdeacons to care for the poor. The head of a 
city church was a bishop (overseer), with supervision over the 
rural churches of the neighborhood. The bishop of the mother 
church in the capital city exercised great authority over the other 
bishops of the province. He became known as archbishop or 
metropolitan; and it became customary for him to summon the 
other bishops to a central council. 



But the 
Empire gave 
time for 
Christianity 
to win 
the world 



The church 
adopts much 
from Rom 2 
in its gov- 
ernment 



26 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Commonly, one of these metropolitans in a given region 
came to have leadership over others, and became known as a 
patriarch. Then the patriarchs of a few great centers were 




JERUSALEM To-day : Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives. 

exalted above the others. Finally all the East became divHidecl 
among the four patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, 
and Constantinople, while all the West came under the authority 
of the bishop of Rome. 



THIRD PERIOD 

MERGING OF ROMAN AND TEUTON. 378-815 A.D. 

T. FOUR CENTURIES OF CONFUSION 

East of the Rliine there had long roamed many "forest The savage 
peoples," whom the Romans called Germans, or Teutons. These ^®'^*°°^ 
barbarians were tall, huge of limb, white-skinned, flaxen-haired, 
with fierce, blue eyes. To the short, dark-skinned races of 
Roman Europe, they seemed tawny giants. 

The tribes nearest the Empire had taken on a little civiliza- 
tion, and had begun to form large combinations under the rule 
of kings. The more distant tribes were still savage and un- 
organized. In general, they were not far above the level of the 
better North American Indians in our colonial period. 

The usual marks of savagery were found among them. They 
were fierce, quarrelsome, hospitable. Their cold, damp forests 
helped to make them drunkards and gluttonous eaters. They 
were desperate gamblers, too, staking even their liberty on a 
throw of the dice. At the same time, they had all a savage's 
proud spirit of individual liberty, — a spirit that had been lost 
in the Roman world. 

In contrast to this was another trait. Every great chief 
was surrounded by a band of "companions," who lived in his 
household, ate at his table, and fought at his side. To them 
the chief gave food, weapons, and plunder. For the safety of 
their "lord" they were ready to give their lives. To survive 
his death, leaving his body to a victorious foe, was life-long 
disgrace. This "personal loyalty" among the Teutons corre- 
sponded to the Roman loyalty to the state. 

The government of the Teutons is described for us by a Government 

Roman historian, Tacitus. A tribe lived in villages scattered °^ village 

and tnbe 
in forests. The milage and the tribe each had its Assembly and 

27 



28 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Invasion 
of the 
West 
Goths 



Other 

Teutonic 
invaders 



Slav 

Europe and 
Teutonic 
Europe 



its hereditary chief. The tribal chief, or king, tvas surrounded 
by his council of village chiefs. To quote Tacitus : 

" On affairs of smaller moment, the chiefs consult ; 
on those of greater importance, the whole community. . . . 
They assemble on stated days, either at the new or full 
moon. When they all think fit, they sit down armed. . . , 
Then the king, or chief, and such others as are conspicuous 
for age, birth, military renown, or eloquence, are heard, and 
gain attention rather from their ability to persuade than 
their authority to command. If a proposal displease, the as- 
sembly reject it by an inarticulate murmur. If it prove 
agreeable, they clash their javelins ; for the most honorable 
expression of assent among them is the sound of arms." 
The first Teutonic people to establish itself within the old 
Empire was the West Goths. These barbarians in 378 defeated 
and slew a Roman Emperor at Adrianople, almost under the 
walls of Constantinople, and then roamed and ravaged at 
will for a generation in the Balkan lands. In 4^0, they entered 
Italy and sacked Rome, and then moved west into Spain, 
where they found the Vandals — another Teuton race who had 
entered Spain through Gaul from across the Rhine. Driving 
the Vandals into Africa, the West Goths set up in Spain the 
first firm Teutonic kingdom. 

Meanwhile, other Teutons had begun to swarm across the 
Rhine. Finally, after frightful destruction, the East Goths 
established themselves in Italy ; the Burgundians, in the valley 
of the Rhone ; the Angles and Saxons, in Britain ; the Franks, 
in northern Gaul. This "wandering of the peoples" filled the 
fifth century and part of the sixth. 

These two terrible centuries brought on the stage also another 
new race, — the Slavs ; and the opening of the following century 
hvonght Mohammedanism (pp. 38 ff.). But of these three forces, 
we are concerned almost alone with the Teutons. Mohammedan- 
ism, as we shall see, seized swiftly upon all the old historic 
ground in Asia and Africa ; but these countries have had little 




After 507 the Kingdom of the West Goths in Qaia 



ast 15 from 20 Greenwich 26 



The 

GERMANIC KINGDOMS 

established on 
ROMAN SOIL 

Close of Efth Century 
CBritain in Sixth Centnry) 




aite^ to a flpi f^ ll ^y M t^fti 3i,Htirif (Sfiptidaini&) 



THE TEUTONIC INVASIONS 29 

touch since with our Western civiHzation. South of the Danube, 
Slavic tribes settled up almost to the walls of Constantinople, 
where the Roman Empire still maintained itself. Southeastern 
Europe became Slavic-Greek, just as Western Europe had be- 
come Teutonic-Roman. But, until very recently. Southeastern 
Europe has had little bearing upon the Western World. The 
two halves of Europe fell apart, with the Adriatic for the 
dividing line, — along the old cleavage between Latin and 
Greek civilizations (p. 17). In all the centuries since, human 
progress has come almost wholly from the Western Romano- 
Teutonic Europe — and from its recent offshoots in other 
continents. 

The invasions brought overwhelming destruction upon this The inva- 
Western world, — the most complete catastrophe that ever ^3°°^ °^^'' 
befell a great civilized society. Civilization, it is true, had been the old 
declining before they began ; but they tremendously accelerated civilization 
the movement, and prevented any revival of the old culture 
in the West. 

And when the invaders had entered into possession, and 
so ceased to destroy, two new causes of decline appeared : 
(1) The new ruling classes were densely ignorant. They cared 
nothing for the survivals of literature and science. Few of 
them could read, or write even their names. Much of the 
old civilization was allowed to decay because they could not 
understand its use. (2) The language of everyday speech was 
growing away from the literary language in which all the remains 
of the old knowledge were preserved. The language of learn- 
ing became "dead." It was known only to the clergy, and to 
most of them at this period very imperfectly. 

The fifth and sixth centuries brought the Teuton into the The "Dark 

Roman world ; the seventh and eighth centuries fused Roman ^^es," 

400-800 
and Teuton elements into a new "Western Europe." For 

the whole four hundred years (400-800), Europe remained a 

dreary scene of violence, lawlessness, and ignorance. The old 

Roman schools disappeared, and classical literature seemed to 



30 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Survivals of 
Roman 
civilization 
in towns 
and in the 
church 



The 

" Greek 
Empire " 



be extinct. There was no tranquil leisure, and therefore no 
study. There was little security, and therefore little work. 
The Franks and Goths were learning the rudiments of civilized 
life ; but the Latins were losing all but the rudiments — and 
they seemed to lose faster than the Teutons gained. 

But after all, the invasions did not uproot civilization. The 
conquests were made by small numbers, and, outside Britain, 
they did not greatly change the character of the population. 
The conquerors settled among ten or fifty times their own 
numbers. At first they were the rulers, and almost the only 
large landowners. But the towns, so far as they survived, re- 
mained Roman, and, almost unnoticed by the ruling classes, 
they preserved some parts of the old culture and handicrafts. 
The old population, too, for a long time furnished all the clergy. 
From this class — the sole possessors of the art of writing and 
keeping records — the Teutonic lords had to draw secretaries 
and confidential officers ; and by these advisers they were grad- 
ually persuaded to adopt many customs of the old civilization. 
Most important of all, the church itself lived on much in the 
old way. Necessarily it suffered somewhat in the general 
degradation of the age ; but, on the whole, it protected the 
weak, and stood for peace, industry, and right living. In the 

darkest of those dark centuries 
there were great numbers of 
priests and monks inspired with 
zeal for righteousness and love 
for men. The church, too, had 
its own government, with which 
the new rulers of the land did not 
much interfere. 
The preservation of Roman law we owe mainly to a source 
outside Western Europe. The Roman Empire lived on in part 
of eastern Europe and in Asia, with its capital at Constanti- 
nople. Cut off from Latin Europe, that Empire now grew more 
and more Greek and Oriental, and after 500 a.d. we usually 
speak of it as " the Greek Empire." 




A Silver Coin of Justinian. 



MERGING OF ROMAN AND TEUTON 



31 



In the sixth century, after long decline, the Empire fell for The 
a time to a capable ruler, Jmtinian the Great (527-565). We Jode'"*° 
remember him chiefly because he brought about a codification 
of the Roman law. In the course of centuries, that law had 
become an intolerable maze. Now a commission of able lawyers 




Church of St. Sophia, Constantinople, built by Justinian upon the site 
of an earlier church of the same name by Constantine. The whole 
interior is lined with costly, many-colored marbles. TJhis view shows 
only a part of the vast dome, with eighteen of the forty windows which 
run about its circumference of some 340 feet. In 1453 the building 
became a Mohammedan mosque (p. 121). In 1919 it became again a 
Christian temple. 



put the whole mass into a new form, marvelously compact, 
clear, and orderly. 

Justinian also reconquered Italy for the Empire, and so the 
code was established in that land. Thence, through the church, 
and some centuries later through a new class of lawyers, it 
spread over the West. 

Justinian's conquest of Italy had another result less happy. 



32 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Lombards 
and Greeks 
in Italy 



His generals destroyed a promising kingdom of the East Goths 
in Italy. Then (568), immediately after the great emperor's 
death, a new German people, the savage Lombards, swarmed 
into the peninsula, and soon conquered much of it. Their chief 
kingdom was in the Po valley, which we still call Lombardy ; 
but various Lombard "dukedoms" were scattered also in other 
parts. The Empire kept (1) the "Exarchate of Ravenna" on 

the Adriatic; (2) Rome, 



with a little territory about 
it; and (3) the extreme 
south. 

Thus Italy, the middle 
land for lohich Roman and 
Teuton had struggled for 
centuries, was at last divided 
between them, and shattered 
into fragments in the jjrocess. 
No other country suffered 
so terribly in the centuries 
of invasion as this lovely 
peninsula which had so 
long been mistress of the 
world. 




Religious Preliminary to a Judicial 
Combat. Each party is making oath 
to the justice of his cause. — From 
a fifteenth century manuscript. 



When the barbarians came into the Empire, their law was 
only unwrittt?n custom. Much of it remained so, especially 
in Britain. But, under Roman influence, the conquerors soon 
put parts of their law into written codes. Two common features 
of these codes throw interesting sidelights on the times. 

1. Offenses were atoned for by money-payments, varying from 
a small amount for cutting off the joint of a finger, to the wergeld 
(man-money), or payment for taking a man's life. 

2. When a man wished to prove himself innocent, or another 
man guilty, he did not try to bring evidence, as we do. Proof 
consisted in an appeal to God to show the right. 

Thus in the trial by compurgation, the accuser and accused 



MERGING OF ROMAN AND TEUTON 



33 



swore solemnly to their statements, and each was backed by 
" compurgators," — not witnesses, but persons who swore they 
believed their man was telling the truth. To swear falsely 
was to invite the divine vengeance, as in the boyish survival, — 
"Cross my heart and hope to die." 

In trial by ordeal, the accused tried to clear himself by being Trial by 
thrown bound into water. Or he plunged his arm into boiling °''d®*' 
water, or carried red-hot 
iron a certain distance, or 
walked over burning plow- 
shares ; and if his flesh was 
uninjured, Avhen examined 
some days later, he was de- 
clared innocent. All these 
ordeals were vmder the 
charge of the clergy, and 
were preceded by sacred ex- 
ercises. Such tests could 
be made, too, by deputy : 
hence our phrase to "go 
through fire and water" 
for a friend. 

Among the fighting class, 
the favorite trial came to 

be the trial by combat, — a judicial duel in which God was ex- 
pected to "show the right." 

The Teutons introduced once more a system of growing 
law. Codification preserved the Roman law, but crystal- 
lized it. Teutonic law, despite its codes, remained for a 
long time crude and unsystematic ; but it contained possi- 
bilities of further growth. The importance of this fact 
has been felt mainly in the English "Common Law," the 
basis of our American legal system. 

The conquest modified the political institutions of the con- 
querors in many ways. Three changes call for attention. 




Trial by Combat : a companion piece 
to the preceding cut. 



34 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



1. The Teutonic kings became more absolute. At first they 
were little more than especially honored military chiefs, at the 
head of rude democracies. In the conquests, they secured 
large shares of confiscated land, so that they could reward their 
supporters and build up a strong personal following. Their 
authority grew by custom, since, in the confusion of the times, 
all sorts of matters were necessarily left to their decision. 
Moreover, the Roman idea of absolute power in the head of 
the state had its influence. With all its excellences, the 
Roman law was imbued with the principle of despotism. A 
favorite maxim was, — " What the prince wills has the force 
of law." 

2. A new nobiliiy of service appeared. The king rewarded his 
most faithful and trusted followers with grants of lands, and 
made them rulers (counts and dukes) over large districts. 

3. The assemblies of freemen decreased in importance. They 
survived in England as occasional "Folkmoots," and in the 
Frankish kingdom as "Mayfields"; but they shrank into 
gatherings of nobles and officials : if others came, it was only 
to hear the king's will. 

At the same time, while these assemblies of the whole 
nation died out or lost their democratic elements, they 
kept much of their old character for various local units, as 
in the counties of the Teutonic kingdoms in England. 
Thus the Teutons did carry into the Roman ivorld a new 
chance for democracy. It is not correct to say that they 
gave us representative government ; but they did give the 
world another chance to develop it. The earlier peoples had 
lost their chances; but in England, later, representative 
institutions grew out of these local assemblies. 

Everyday life in the seventh century ivas harsh and mean. 
The Teutonic conquerors disliked the close streets of a Roman 
town ; but the villa, the residence of a Roman country gentle- 
man, was the Roman institution which they could most nearly 
appreciate. The new Teutonic kings lived not in town palaces, 



MERGING OF ROMAN AND TEUTON 



35 



but on extensive farmsteads in the midst of forests. The new 
nobility, too, and other important men, were great landlords 
and lived in the open country in rude but spacious dwellings 
of wood. 

Population had shrunken terribly, even since the worst times Population 
of the Rom3-n Empire. In the north, most towns had been ^'^™° ®° 
destroyed. If they were rebuilt at all, it was upon a smaller 
scale, and from 




wood. The occu- 
pations of town- 
dwellers had 
mostly vanished. 
The town, sur- 
rounded by a rude 
palisade, was val- 
ued chiefly for a 
refuge, and for its 
convenient near- 
ness to the church 
or cathedral in its 
center. In the south, it is true, the old cities lived on, with a 
considerable degree of the old Roman city life. 

Everywhere, the great majority of the people were the poor Life of the 
folk who tilled the land for neighboring masters. Most of these ^°°^ 
toilers lived in mud hovels, or in cabins of rough boards, with- 
out floors and with roofs covered with reeds or straw. At the 
best, little more of their produce remained to them than barely 
enough to support life; and they were constantly subject to 
the arbitrary will of masters. At frequent intervals, too, they 
suffered terribly from pestilence and famine. 



Seventh Century Villa (in wood) in Northern 
Gaul. A "restoration," from Parmentier. 



This picture of ordinary seventh-century life helps us to Monasti- 
understand the monastic life which became popular in that day. "^™ 
In the old East, holiness was believed to be related to withdrawal 
from the world, to contempt for human pleasures, and to dis- 
regard for natural instincts, even love for mother, wife, and 



36 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



child. This unnatural, ascetic tendency invaded Eastern 
Christianity, and, in the Egyptian and Syrian deserts, there 
arose a class of tens of thousands of Christian hermits, who 
strove each to save his own soul by tormenting his body. In 
some cases these fugitives from society united into small 

societies with common 
rules of life. 

In the latter part of the 
fourth century this idea of 
religious communities was 
transplanted to the West 
and the long anarchy fol- 
lowing the invasions made 
such a life peculiarly in- 
viting. European monas- 
ticism, however, differed 
widely from its model in 
the East. The monks of 
the West, within their 
quiet walls, wisely sought 
escape from temptation, 
not in idleness, but in 
active and incessant work. 
Their motto was, "To 
work is to pray." In 
the seventh century, the 
majority of cultured and 
refined men and women in Western Europe lived within mo- 
nastic walls. Monks did not go out into the world to save 
it ; but their doors were open to all who came for help. For 
centuries of violence and brutality, the thousands of monas- 
teries that dotted Western Europe were the only almshouses, 
inns, asylums, hospitals, and schools, and the sole refuge of 
learning. 




The Abbey ' of Citeaux. — From a min- 
iature in a twelfth century manuscript. 



' A large monastery was an abbey, and its elected head was an abbot — from 
the Syrian word abba, " father." 



EARLY EMPIRE OF THE FRANKS 



37 



II. FRANKS, MOHAMMEDANS, AND POPES 

During the two centuries of fusion (p. 29), two great 
organizing powers grew up in Western Europe — the Prankish 
state and the Papacy ; and one great danger appeared — Mo- 
hammedanism. 

The growth of the Frankish state was due mainly to Clovis, Rise of 
a ferocious and treacherous Teutonic savage of shrewd intellect. *^® Franks 
In 481, Clovis became king 
of one of the several little 
tribes of Franks on the 
lower Rhine. Fifty years 
later, thanks to a long- 
continued policy of war, 
assassination, and perfidy, 
his sons ruled an empire 
that was beyond compari- 
son the greatest power in 
Europe, comprising nearly 
all modern France, the 
Netherlands, and much of 
western Germany. 

This neio Prankish empire remained for three centuries not 
only the greatest poioer in Western Europe hut practically the only 
power. The Gothic state in Spain was in decay. Italy was in 
fragments. England (Britain) remained a medley of small 
warring states (p. 56). Germany, east of the Frankish empire, 
held only savage and unorganized tribes. 

For two of these centuries the family of Clovis kept the 
throne, — a story of greed, treachery, and murder, and, toward 
the end, of dismal, swinish indolence. The last of these kings 
were mere phantom rulers, known as "Do-nothings," and all 
real power was held by a mayor of the palace. The Empire of 
the Franks seemed about to dissolve in anarchy. Austrasia 
(northeastern France and the lower Rhine region) was the most 
Frank in blood, and was engaged in war with Neustria (north - 




Monks Busy in Field Work. 
Lacroix, after a thirteenth 
manuscript. 



— From 
century 



The " Do- 
nothing " 
kings 



38 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



The 

Prankish 
state re- 
united by 
Mattel 



western France), which had more of the old Roman character, 
and was ambitious for supremacy. German Bavaria and 
Roman Aquitaine attempted complete independence under native 
dukes. But about the year 700 a great mayor, Charles, known 
as Martel ("the Hammer"), by crushing blows right and left 
began to restore union and order. 



Arabia 
before 
Mohammed 



And none too soon. For the Mohammedans now attacked 
Europe. Except for Martel's long pounding, there would 
have been no Christian power able to withstand their onset — 




A Repast in the Hall of a Frankish Koble. — After a tenth c-entury 

manuscript. 

and Englishmen and Americans to-day might be readers of 
the Mohammedan Koran instead of the Christian* Bible. 

A century after Clovis built up the empire of the Franks, a 
better man, out of less promising material, built a mighty 
power in Arabia. Until that time, Arabia had had little to do 
with human progress. It was mainly desert, with occasional 
oases, and with strips of tillable land near the Red Sea. In this 
coast district there were a few small cities. Elsewhere the 
Arabs were wandering shepherds, — poor and ignorant, dwelling 
in black camel's-hair tents, living from their sheep and by 
robbing their neighbors, and worshiping sticks and stones. 
The inspiring force that was to lift them to a higher life, and fuse 



EARLY MOHAMMEDANISM 39 

them into a world-conquering nation, was the fiery enthusiasm 

of Mohammed. 

Mohammed was born at Mecca, the largest city of Arabia, Moham- 

about 570. He never learned to read ; but his speech was ™®**' 

570-632 

ready and forceful, and his manner pleasing and stately. As 
a youth, he was modest, serious, and truthful, — so that as. a 
hjred camel-driver, he earned the surname "the Faithful." 
He had always been given to occasional periods of religious 
enthusiasm and ecstasy, watching and praying alone in the 
desert for days at a time, as indeed many Arabs did. In such 
a lonely vigil, when he was a respected merchant forty years 
old, God appeared to him (he said) in a wondrous vision, re- 
Aealing to him a higher religion and ordering him to preach it 
to his countrymen. Mohammed really drew the best features 
of his new religion from Jewish and Christian teachings, with 
which he had become somewhat acquainted in his travels as a 
merchant. The two central requirements were faith and obe- 
dience. A " true believer " must accept only the one God, Allah, 
and must offer complete submission (Islam) to his will. 

The Koran,^ the "sacred book" made up of Mohammed's Moral 
teachings, taught a higher morality than the Arabs had known, teachings 
— not so very unlike that of the Ten Commandments ; but it Mohammed 
accepted also certain evil customs of the time, such as slavery 
and polygamy, and it attracted converts by its sensuous ap- 
peals to future pleasures or pains. At the "Last Day," all 
souls would be gathered to judgment. Then all sinful Moham- 
medans, together with all "Unbelievers," would be cast into 
an everlasting hell of scalding water covered with thick clouds 
of smoke. True believers, on the other hand, were to enter the 
joys of an eternal Paradise, to recline, in the midst of lovely 
gardens, on couches of gold and jewels, where they would be 
served constantly by beautiful maidens ("houris") with de- 
licious foods and wines. 

For twelve years the new faith grew slowly. A few friends „ ^• 
accepted Mohammed at once as a prophet; but the bulk of 622 ad. 
1 See extracts in Ogg's Source Book, No. 13. 



40 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



his fellow townsfolk jeered at the claim, and when he con- 
tinued to order them to put away their stone idols, they drove 
him from Mecca. This flight is "the Hegira" {622 a.d.). 




III?" Ui '"^/"^.^ffiit 




The Mosqxk of El Azhar at Cairo. — • This view shows only the minarets 
and dome of the rof)f. 

Mohammed But Mohammed converted the tribes of the desert, and then 
took up the sword. His fierce warriors proved themselves 
almost irresistible, conquering many a time against overwhelm- 
ing odds. They felt sure that to every man there was an ap- 



EUROPE SAVED FROM MOHAMMEDANISM 41 



pointed time of death, which he could neither delay nor hasten, 
and they rejoiced in death in battle as the surest admission to 
the joys of Paradise. "The sword," said Mohammed, "is the 
key of heaven. Whoso falls in battle, all his sins are forgiven ; 
at the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as 
vermilion and odoriferous as musk." Before his death, ten 
years after the Hegira, Mohammed was master of all Arabia. 
Eighty years later, his followers stood victorious upon the 
Oxus, the Indus, the Black Sea, the Atlantic, — rulers of a 
realm more extensive than that of Rome at its height. Within 
the span of one human life, the Mohammedans had won all 
the old Asiatic empire of /Alexander the Great, and all North 
Africa besides ; and drawing together the sweeping horns of 
their mighty crescent, they were already trying to enter Europe 
from both east and west across the narrow straits of the Helles- 
pont and Gibraltar. 

The most formidable attacks wore themselves away (672 and 
717) about the walls of "the City of Constantine," defended 
by its new "Greek fire" ; but in 711 the Arabs did enter Spain 
and were soon masters of that peninsula, except for remote 
mountain fastnesses. Then, pouring across the Pyrenees, the 
Mohammedan flood spread over Gaul, even to the Loire. 
Now, indeed, it "seemed that the crescent was about to round 
to the full." But the danger completed the reunion of the Frankish 
state (p. 38). 

The duke of Aquitaine, long in revolt against Frankish rule, 
fled to the camp of Charles Martel for aid against the 
Mohammedan ; and, in 732, in the plains near Tours, the 
"Hammer of the Franks" with his close array of mailed Aus- 
trasian infantry met the Arab host. From dawn to dark, on a 
Saturday in October, the gallant, turbaned horsemen of the 
Saracens hurled themselves in vain against the Franks' stern 
wall of iron. x\t night the surviving Arabs stole silently from 
their camp and fled back behind the shelter of the Pyrenees. 

This Battle of Tours, just one hundred years after Moham- 
med's death, is the high-ivater mark of the Saracen, invasion. 



Rapid 
growth of 
the faith 



The 

Saracens 
attack 
Europe 



Battle of 
Tours, 
732 A.D. 



42 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



A few years later, the Mohammedan world, like Christendom, 
split into rival empires. The Caliph ^ of the East built, for 
his capital, the wonderful city of Bagdad on the Tigris. The 
Caliphate of the West fixed its capital at Cordova in Spain. 
The two Caliphates were more or less hostile to each other, and 
the critical danger to Western civilization for the time passed 
away. The repulses at Constantinople and at Tours rank with 
Marathon and Salamis, in the long struggle between Asia and 
Europe. 

The Prankish state had saved Europe from Africa. Next 
it allied to itself the papacy. We must now trace the rise of 
that power. 

In the fourth century, we have seen (p. 26), the leadership 
of the Christian world was divided among the great bishops 
of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome. 
Very early the last of these put forth a vigorous claim — as 
spiritual successor to St. Peter, alleged founder of the church 
at Rome — to supremacy over all the Christian church. 

Rome had advantages that helped to make good this claim, 

(1) Men thought of Rome naturally as the world-capital. 

(2) The Latin half of the Empire had no other church founded 
by an Apostle ; nor did it contain any other great city : Rome's 
rivals were all east of the Adriatic. (3) The decline of the 
Roman Empire in the West, after the barbarian invasions, 
left the pope less liable to interference from the imperial gov- 
ernment than the Eastern bishops were. (4) A long line of 
remarkable popes, by their wise statesmanship and their mis- 
sionary zeal, confirmed the position of Rome as head of the 
Western churches. 

The name pope ("papa") was at first only a term of 
aft'ectionate respect ("father"). It did not become an 
official term until 1085. 

Even in the West, however, until about 700 a.d., most men 

looked upon the bishop of Rome only as one among five great 

> Caliph ("successor") became the title of the successors of Mohammed. 



RISE OF THE PAPACY 



43 



patriarchs, though the most loved and trusted one. But the 
eighth century eliminated the other four patriarchs, so far as 
Westerti Christendom was concerned. In quick succession, 
Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch fell to the Saracens; and, 
soon afterward, remaining Christendom split into rival Latin 
and Greek churches, grouped respectively around Rome and 
Constantinople. 



Hi 


iff^n 


! i.a 


r 




^^^^H^ -,.,,^,^^^^^^ , 1 rt!"',%»' 




jimM'- 


^ 




' 1 ' 






I 1 


1' 


.lilt 











The Church of St. John Lateran at Rome, on the site of the first papal 
church. The popes used the adjoining Lateran palace as their official 
residence until 1377. 



This "Great Schism^' followed the ancient lines of partition The " Gr 

between the Latin and Greek cultures ; but the occasion for actual j^^^g™ 

separation was a dispute over the use of images (the " icono- Rome 

clast," or image-breaking question). An influential party in J]^'^^"^^ 

the Greek Empire desired to abolish the use of images, which. Western 
they felt, the ignorant were apt to degrade from symbols into '^'^ 
idols. A great reforming emperor, Leo the I saurian, put him- 
self at the head of the movement, with all his despotic power. 



44 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



and ordered all images removed from the churches. The West 
believed in their use as valuable aids to worship ; and the 
pope forbade obedience to the order of the emperor. The 
result was the separation of Christendom into two halves, 
never since united. 

Thus, Rome was left the unquestioned head of the Latin 
church, the spiritual lord of Western Europe. At the same 




Cloisters of St. John Lateran. 



time, too, the pope was growing into a temporal ^ sovereign over a 
small state in Italy. In the break-up of that peninsula (p. 32), 
the imperial governor kept his capital at Ravenna, safe amid 
the marshes of the Adriatic coast. Thus he was soon cut off, 
by Lombard states, from Rome, which with neighboring terri- 
tory still belonged to the Empire. Bishops always held 
considerable civil authority. This new condition left the 

' Temporal, in this sense, is used to apply to matters of this world, in 
contrast to the spiritual matters of the world eternal. 



UNION OP FRANKS AND POPES 45 

hishop of Rome the only lieutenant of the Empire in his 
isolated district ; and the difficulty of communication with 
Constantinople (and the weakness of the emperors) made him 
in practice an independent ruler. After the split between 
Greek and Latin churches, this independence was openly 
avowed. 

At once, however, the new papal state was threatened with Popes and 
conquest by the neighboring Lombards, who already had seized Lo™^"<^s 
the Exarchate of Ravenna. The popes appealed to the Franks 
for aid against Lombard attack. The Frankish mayors needed 
papal sanction for their own plans just then ; and so the two or- 
(janizinci forces of Western Europe joined hands. 

The Frankish mayor now was Pippin the Short, son of Charles Alliance of 

Martel. This ruler felt that he bore the burdens of kingship, ^"°^^ ^°<* 

. . rapacy 

and he wished to take to himself also its name and dignity. 

Such a step needed powerful sanction. So, in 750, Pippin sent 

an embassy to the pope to ask whether this was "a good 

state of things in regard to the kings of the Franks." The 

pope replied, " It seems better that he who has the power 

should be king rather than he who is falsely called so.'' 

Thereupon Pippin shut up the last shadow-king of the house 

of Clovis in a monastery, and himself assumed the crown. 

A little later. Pope Stephen visited the Frankish court and 

solemnly consecrated Pippin king. All earlier Teutonic kings 

had held their kingship by will of their people ; but Stephen 

anointed Pippin, as the old Hebrew prophets did the Hebrew 

kings. This began for European monarchs their "sacred" 

character as "the Lord's anointed." On his part, Pippin 

made Lombardy a tributary state and gave to the pope that 

territory which the Lombard king had recently seized from 

Ravenna. This "Donation of Pippin" created the modern 

principality of " the Papal states" — to last until 1870. 



FOURTH PERIOD 



CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE 



" A patch of light in a vast gloom" 



Charle- 
magne, 
768-814 



Repulse of 
barbarian 
danger : 
civilization 
expanded 




In 768 Pippin, King of the Franks, was succeeded by his 
son Karl, soon to win justly the title of the Great — the greatest 
medieval man. Karl the Great was known in his own day; 
in the Latin form of his name, as Carolus Magnus, and is best 
known to us by the French form Charle- 
magne. 

Charlemagne was a statesman rather 
than a fighter ; but he found his realm still 
threatened by barbarian Germans on the 
east and by Mohammedan Moors on the 
south, and his long reign of a half century 
was filled with ceaseless border wars. He 
thrust back the Saracens to the Ebro, re- 
deeming a strip of Spain ; and, in a long 
pounding of thirty years, he subdued the 
heathen Saxons amid the marshes and 
trackless wilderness between the lower 
Rhine and the Elbe. All this district, so 
long a peril to the civilized world, was 
colonized by Prankish pioneers and planted 
with Christian churches. In such bloody 
and violent ways Charlemagne laid the foundation for modern 
Germany. 

Other foes engaged energy the great king would rather 
have given to reconstruction. The vassal Lombard king 
attacked the pope. After fruitless expostulation, Charlemagne 
marched into Italy, confirmed Pippin's "Donation," and at 

46 



Seal of Charle- 
magne . (This is the 
nearest approach we 
have to a likeness of 
Charlemagne. The 
so-called "pictures" 
of Charlemagne in 
many books are 
purely imaginative, 
by artists of later 
centuries.) 



CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE 



47 



Pavia placed the Iron Crown of Lombardy upon his own head, 
as King of Italy. And when restless German Bavaria once 
more rebelled (p. 38), that district was at last thoroughly and 
lastingly subdued. 

Thus Visigoth in northern Spain, Burgund in south Gaul, 
Lombard in Italy, and the more newly "civilized" Bavarian 
and Saxon in Germany, along with the dominant Franks — 
all the surviving Teutonic peoples except the 
Norsemen in the Scandina\ian lands and the 
Angles and Saxons in Britain — were fused 
in one Christian Romano-Teutonic state. Be- 
yond this "Western Europe," to the east, 
stretched away savage and heathen Avars 
and Slavs, still hurling themselves from time 
to time against the barriers of the civilized 
world. Charlemagne made no attempt to 
embody these inharmonious elements in his 
realm ; but, toward the close, he did attack 
barbarism in these last European strong- 
holds, reducing the first line of peoples beyond the Elbe and 
the Danube into tributary states to serve as buffers against their 
untamed brethren farther east. 

But no mere "King of the Franks" could hold in lasting alle- 
giance the minds of Visigoth, Lombard, Bavarian, and Saxon, 
and of the old Roman populations among whom they dwelt. 
And so Charlemagne now strengthened his authority over his em- 
pire ^ by reviving in the West the dignity and magic name of the 
Roman Empire, ruling at once from the old world-capital, Rome 
on the Latin Tiber, and from his new capital, the German 
Aachen on the Rhine. 

There was already a " Roman Emperor " at Constantinople, 
whose authority, in theory, extended over all Christendom ; 




bERVIXl.MAN WITH 

Lamp : time of 
Charlemagne. 



" Buffer " 
states on 
the East 



" Emperor 
of the 
Romans," 
800 A.D. 



' An "empire," strictly speaking, is a political state containing many sub- 
states. A "state," in this sense, does not mean such a unit as Massachusettu 
or New York, but rather England or the United States. That is, it means a 
people living in a definite territory, under one government. 



48 



BRIEF SURVEY OP EARLIER PROGRESS 



The two 
Empires 



Poverty 
and misery 
of Europe, 
800 AD. 



but just at this time, Irene, the empress-mother, put out the 
eyes of her son, Constantine VI, and seized the imperial power. 
To most minds. East and West, it seemed monstrous that a 
wicked woman should pretend to the scepter of the world ; and, 
on Christmas Day, 800 a.d., as Charlemagne at Rome knelt in 
prayer at the altar, Pope Leo III placed upon his head a gold 
crown, saluting him "Charles Augustus, Emperor of the 
Romans." This deed was at once ratified by the enthusiastic 
acclaim of the multitude without. 

In theory, Rome had chosen a successor to Constantine VI, 
just deposed at Constantinople. In actual fact, however, the 
deed of Leo and Charlemagne divided the Christian world into two 
rival empires, each calling itself the Roman Empire. After a 
time men had to recognize this fact, — as they had to recognize 
that there were two branches of the Christian church ; but 
to the men of the West, their Empire, like their church, remained 
the only legitimate one. Two things must be borne in mind. 

1. Neither Empire was really Roman. As the Eastern grew 
more and more Oriental, the Western grew more and more 
Teutonic. Roman ideas, so far as they remained at all, were 
worked out by rulers of Teutonic blood. 

2. The netv Empire arose out of a union of the papacy and the 
Prankish power. In later times the union was expressed in 
the name, The Holy Roman Empire. The Empire had its 
spiritual as well as its temporal head. The limits of authority 
between the two heads were not well defined, and dissensions 
were afterward to arise between them. 

The glory and prosperity of the old Empire had not been 
restored with its name. To accomplish that was to be the work 
of centuries more. In 800, the West loan still ignorant and 
wretched. There was much barbarism in the most civilized 
society. Roads had fallen to ruin, and murderous brigands 
infested those that remained. Money was little known, and 
trade hardly existed. Almost the only industry was the primi- 
tive agriculture of the serfs. Even Charlemagne could raise 




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CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE 49 

no "taxes." He exacted "service in person" in war and 
peace ; and the other support of his court came mainly from 
the produce of the royal farms scattered through the kingdom. 
Partly to make sure of this revenue in the cheapest way, and 
more to attend to the wants of his vast realms, Charlemagne 
and his court were always on the move. No commercial 
traveler of to-day travels more faithfully, or dreams of en- 
countering such hard- 
ship on the road. 

To keep in closer MK/^^f^L JH BPP^ The " May- 
touch with popular ^B^3mK^HHM mES^r^m^'^S^ fields " of 

p BBS^PH^S^SJ ^lK0%/%.JI^U0ll^tBk the Franks 
reelmg m all parts oi m^^m Hw-^«..^.>»i^^BB 

the kingdom, Charle- 
magne made use of the 

old Teutonic assem- o /-. /-^ rp, u 

Silver Coin of Charlemagne. The obverse 

blies in fall and spring. side shows the Latin form of his name. Note 

» 11 (. 114. the rudeness of the engraving comrjared with 

All freemen could at- ^j^^^ ^^ Justinian's coin on page 30. 

tend. Sometimes, es- 
pecially when war was to be decided upon, this "Mayfield" 
gathering comprised the bulk of the men of the Prankish nation. 
At other times it was made up only of the great nobles and 
churchmen (p. 34). 

To these assemblies were read the capitularies, or collec- 
tions of laws decreed by the king ; but the assembly was not 
itself a legislature. Law-making was in the hands of the Icing. 
At the most, the assemblies could only bring to bear upon him 
mildly the force of public opinion. A modern French historian 
(Coulanges) pictures a Mayfield thus : 

"An immense multitude is gathered in a plain, under tents. It is 
divided into separate groups. The chiefs of these groups assemble about 
the king, to deliberate with him. Then each of them tells his own group 
what has been decided, perhaps consults them, but at any rate obtains 
their consent as easily as the king had obtained his ; for these men are 
dependent on him, just as he is on the king. . . . The king's will de- 
cided everything; the nobles only advised." 

Charlemagne made brave attempts also to revive learning. 
He never learned to write, but he spoke and read Latin, as well 



50 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Attempts 
to revive 
learning 



The world 
of 800 AD. 



as his native German, and he understood some Greek. For 
his age he was an educated man ; and he wished earnestly to 
make more learning possible for others. The difficulties were 
greater even than in Russia to-day. Nearly every noble, and 
many of the clergy, were densely ignorant. The only tools to 
work with were poor. There seemed no place to begin. 

Still much was done. For teachers Charlemagne sought out 
learned men in South Italy, where Roman civilization best 
survived, and he opened schools in monasteries and at bishops' 
seats for the instruction of all children who could come to them 
— even the children of serfs. Some of these schools, as at 
Tours and Orleans, lived on through the Middle Ages.^ 

In the early part of the eighth century there were four great 
forces contending for Western Europe, — the Greek Empire, 
the Saracens, the Franks, and the papacy. By the year 800, 
Charles Martel and Charles the Great had excluded the first 
two and had fused the other two into the revived Roman Em- 
pire. For centuries more, this Roman Empire was to be one 
of the most important forces in Europe. Barbarism and 
anarchy were again to break in, after the death of the great 
Charles ; but the imperial idea, to which he had given new life, 
was to be for ages the inspiration of the best minds as they 
strove against anarchy in behalf of order and progress. 

Charlemagne himself towers above all other men from the fifth 
century to the fifteenth — easily the greatest figure of a thousand 
years. He stands for five mighty movements. He widened 
the area of civilization, created one great Romano-Teutonic 
state, revived the Roman Empire in the West for the out- 
ward form of this state, reorganized church and society, and 
began a revival of learning. He wrought wisely to combine 
the best elements of Roman and of Teutonic society into 
a new civilization. In his Empire were fused the various 

' The term " Middle Ages " is used for the tenturies from 400 to 1500, or 
from the Teutonic invasions to the Discovery of America. These centuries 
cover that "Medieval" period which intervenes between the distinctly 
Ancient and the distinctly Modern period. 



THE WORLD OF 800 A.D. 



.51 



streams of influence which the Ancient World contributed to our 
Modern World. 

The world was divided among four great powers — two ri\'al 
Christian "Roman" Empires and two rival Mohammedan 
Caliphates. For centuries the Western Empire remained the 
least polished, least wealthy, least civilized of the four. And 
yet this rude state, with its fringes in the Teutonic lands of 
England and Scandinavia, was the only one of the four great 




The Field of Ancient History, to 800 a.d. 



powers that was to stand for further progress, — the only one 
with which later history is much concerned. 

The scene of history had shifted to the West once more, and Scene of 
this time it had shrunken in size. Some Teutonic districts 
outside the old Roman world had been added ; but vast areas 
of the Roman territory itself had been abandoned. The 
Euphrates, the Nile, the Eastern Mediterranean, all Asia with 
Eastern Europe to the Adriatic, and Africa with Western 
Europe to the Pyrenees, were gone. The Mediterranean, the 



history " 
shifted to 
" Western 
Europe " 



52 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Western 
Europe's 
heritage 
from the 
ages 



center of the old Roman world, had become an ill-defended 
moat between Christian Europe and Mohammedan Africa; 
and its ancient place as the great highway of civilization was 
taken over, as well as might be, by the Rhine and the North 
Sea. 

We can now sum up the inheritance with which "Western 
Europe" began. 

Through Rome the Western peoples were the heirs of .Greek 
mind and Orienial hand, including most of those mechanical 
arts which had been built up in dim centuries by Egyptian, 
Babylonian, and Phoenician ; and though much of this inherit- 
ance, both intellectual and material, was forgotten or neglected 
for hundreds of years, most of it was finally to be recovered. 
Rome also passed on Christianity and its church organization. 

Rome herself had contributed (1) a universal language, which 
was to serve as a common medium of learning and intercourse 
for all the peoples of Western Europe ; (2) Roman law ; (3) mu- 
nicipal institutions, in southern Europe ; (4) the imperial idea 
— the conception of one, lasting, universal, supreme authority, 
to which the world owed obedience. 

The fresh blood of the Teutons reinvigorated the old races, 
and so provided the men who for centuries were to do the 
world's work. The Teutons contributed, too, certain definite 
ideas and institutions, — (1) a new sense of personal inde- 
pendence ; (2) a bond of personal loyalty between chieftain 
and follower, in contrast with the old Roman loyalty to the 
state ; (3) a new chance for democracy, especially in the popular 
assemblies of different grades in England. 

Out of Roman and Teutonic elements there had already de- 
veloped a new serf organization of labor ; a new nobility ; and 
a new Romano-Teutonic kingship — and now there was to grow 
out of them a new feudalism (below) . 

The use of the words German and Teuton in the above treat- 
ment calls for a word of caution. They are the only proper 
words to use, but they may easily give rise to misunderstanding. 



THE WORLD OP 800 A.D. 53 

The mingling of Teutonic and Roman elements in our civiliza- Caution 
tion took place not in Germany but in the lands we call Eng- ^g^^^g 
land, France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain. The people who " Teuton ■ 
brought the Teutonic contributions into those lands were not "^Gei-man 
the ancestors of the modern Germans — any more than were 
other Teutons, like the Danes and Swedes, who never entered 
Germany : they were, in part, the ancestors of English, French, 
Spanish, and Italian peoples. They left Germany fourteen 
hundred years ago ; and the civilization which grew up in those 
Western lands, after these migrations into them, was the civiliza- 
tion of a new "Western Europe." Then, some three or four 
centuries later, as we have seen, Christianity and armed con- 
quest began, in a measure, to carry this new civilization east 
from these lands into the forests of savage and heathen 
Germany. 




FIFTH PERIOD 



THE FEUDAL AGE, 800-1300 



I. THE NEW BARBARIAN ATTACK 

'^^ From the fury of the Northmen, Lord, deliver u.s." — Prayer 
IN Church Service of Tenth Century 

Charlemagne died in 814, and his empire did not long outlive 
him. His brilliant attempt to bring Western Europe into order 
and union was followed by a dismal period of reaction and 
turmoil, while his ignoble descendants sought only to see who 
could grab the largest slices of the realm. The most impor- 
tant of these selfish contests closed m 843 with the Treaty of 
Verdun. 

This treaty begins the map of modern Europe. Lothair, 
Charlemagne's eldest grandson, held the title Emperor, and 
so he was now given North Italy and a narrow strip of land 
from Italy to the North Sea — that he might keep the two 
imperial capitals, Rome and Aachen (p. 47). The rest of the 
Empire, lying east and west of this middle strip, was broken 
into two kingdoms for Lothair's two brothers. 

The eastern kingdom was purely German. In the western, 
the Teutonic rulers were being absorbed rapidly into the older 
Roman and Gallic populations, to grow into France. Lothair's 

54 



NEW BARBARIAN INVASIONS AFTER 800 



55 




unwieldy "Middle Europe" proved the weakest of the three. 
Italy fell away at once. Then the northern portion, part 
French, part German, crumbled into "little states" that con- 
fused the map of Europe for centuries. Most of them were 
finally absorbed by their more powerful neighbors on either 
side. Four survive as Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, and 
Switzerland. 

For a century after Verdun, political history remained a 
bloody tangle of treacherous family quarrels, while the descend- 
ants of the Hammer and the Great were known as the Bald, 
the Simple, the Fat, the 
Lazy. And now distracted 
Europe was imperiled by 
a new danger from with- 
out. Once more barbarian 
invasions threatened the 
civilized world. On the 
east, hordes of wild Slavs 
and of wilder Hungarians 
broke across the frontiers, 

ravaged Germany, and penetrated sometimes even to Rome 
or to Toulouse in southern France. The Mohammedan Moors 
from Africa attacked Italy and Sicily, establishing them- 
selves firmly in many districts and turning the Mediterra- 
nean into a Mohammedan lake. Fierce Norse pirates harried 
every coast', and, swarming up the rivers, pierced the heart 
of the land. 

The Norsemen were a new branch of the Teutons, and the The 
fiercest and wildest of that race. They dwelt in the Scandi- 
navian peninsulas, and were still heathen. They had taken 
no part in the earlier Teutonic invasions ; but, in the ninth 
century, population was becoming too crowded for their bleak 
lands, and they were driven to seek new homes. Some of them 
colonized distant Iceland, and set up a free republic there; 
but the greater number resorted to raiding richer countries. 
The Swedes conquered Finns and Slavs on the east, while 



Degenerate 
Carolingians 



Remains of a Viking Ship found buried 
in sand at Gokstad, Norway. It is 
of oak, unpainted, 79' 4" by 16|' ; 6 
feet deep in the middle. 



New bar- 
barian in- 
roads 



Norsemen 



56 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

Danish and Norse "Vikings "("sons of the fiords") set forth 
upon "the pathway of the swans," in fleets, sometimes of 
hundreds of boats, to harry western Europe. Driving their 
hght craft far up the rivers, they then seized horses and 
ravaged at will, sacking cities like Hamburg, Rouen, Paris, 
Nantes, Tours, Cologne, and stabling their steeds in the 
cathedral of Aachen about the tomb of Charlemagne. 

At last, like the earlier Teutons, the Norsemen from plun- 
derers became conquerors. They settled the Orkneys and 
Shetlands and patches on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, 
and finally established themselves in the north of France — 
named, from them, Normandy — and in the east of England. 

TI. BRITAIN BECOMES ENGLAND 

The Teuton We must go back to note how Britain had become England. 

conquest of jj^ ^Qg ^|-^g Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain to 

Bntain, ° 

449-600 defend Italy against the threatened invasion by the Goths 

^^ (p. 28). This left the dismayed Romanized Britons to defend 

themselves as best they could against Teutonic ravagers on 
the coasts and the wild Celts ^ of the Scottish mountains. 
The Britons called in the Teutons to beat off the other foe, 
and (449) these dangerous protectors began to take the land 
for their own. 

Many little Teutonic states were founded by the invaders, 
and gradually these small units were welded into larger king- 
doms, until there appeared seven main Teutonic states : 
Kent, the kingdom of the Jutes ; Sussex, Essex, and Wessex 
(kingdoms of the South Saxons, East Saxons, and West Saxons) ; 
and East Anglia, Northumhria, and Mcrcia — kingdoms of 
Angles, or English, who were finally to give their name to the 
island. 

This conquest, unlike that of Gaul and Spain, was very slow. 
It took the Teutons a century and a half (till about 600) to 

1 Celt includes the Highland Scots, the Irish, the Gauls of France, and 
the native Britons of Britain before the Teutonic conquest. At an earlier 
period the Celts seem to have covered much of central Europe. 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 



57 



master the eastern half of the island. For this there were four The con- 
reasons. (1) The Angles and Saxons at home were living in <i"fistsow 
petty tribes and therefore could make no great organized thorough 
attack. (2) Coming by sea, they came necessarily in small 
bands. (3) They were still pagans: they spread ruthless de- 
struction and provoked desperate resistance, until, about 600 
A.D., Christianity began to win the heathen conquerors. 




St. Martin's Church, Near Canterbury. — From a photograph. Parts 
of the building are very old, and may have belonged to a church of the 
Roman period. At all events, on this site was the first Christian church 
in Britain used by Augustine and his fellow missionaries, .sent out by 
Pope Gregory. They secured the right to use it through the favor of 
Queen Bertha, a Prankish princess, who had married the king of Kent. 
A tomb, said to be Queen Bertha's, is shown in the church. 

(4) Britain had been less completely Romanized than the con- 
tinental provinces were. There was more of forest and marsh, 
and a less extensive network of Roman roads : hence the na- 
tives found it easier to make repeated stands. 

Because the conquest loas sloio, it was thorough. Eastern 
England became strictly a Teutonic land. Roman institutions, 
the Roman language, Christianity, even names for the most 
part, vanished, and the Romanized natives were slain, driven 
out, or enslaved. 



58 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



ENGLAND 

AND 

THE DANELAGH 

about 900 




THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 



59 



In the middle of the ninth century Egbert, king of the West 
Saxons, brought all the Teutonic parts of the island under his 
authority, though he was only head king over jealous tributary 
kings. Then came the Danish invasions — to shatter this 
new union, but, in the end, to cement it more firmly. The 
Danes, who had long harried the coasts, made their first 
permanent settlement in 850; and, in 871, after a great 
battle in which the king of Wessex was slain, they became for 
a time masters of England. The power of Wessex was soon 
revived however by Alfred the Great (871-901). The Danes 
were defeated, baptized, and shut off in the northeast, beyond 
Watling Street (an old Roman road from London to Chester) ; 
and all the Teutonic states in South England now willingly 
accepted the rule of Wessex for protection against the Dane. 

Alfred gave the rest of his splendid life to heal the wounds 
of his kingdom, and, more successfully than Charlemagne, 
to revive learning in a barbarous age — though at first he 
found " not one priest " in the kingdom who could understand 
the church services that he mumbled by rote. His great suc- 
cessors reconquered the Danelaw district, and under Edgar 
the Peaceful (957-975), his greatgrandson, the island rested 
in union and prosperity — so that even distant Celtic princes 
came to Edgar's court to acknowledge his overlordship. 



The Danes 
in England 



Alfred the 
Great 



III. FEUDALISM 

"vi protest of barbarism against barbarism." — Taine 

The barbarian invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries The anarchy 
did not create a new society in Europe, as those of the fifth ° t e mn 
century had done; but they did force Europe to take on a forces 
new military organization. After Charlemagne, 
century on the continent became a time of indescribable horror. 
The strong robbed the weak, and brigands worked their will 
in plunder and torture. 

But out of this anarchy emerged a new social order. Here 
and there, and in ever growing numbers, some petty chief — 



the ninth ^-^'^ 



60 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



retired bandit, rude huntsman, or old officer of a king — planted 
himself firmly on a small domain, fortifying a stockaded house 
and gathering a troop of fighters under him to protect it. By 
so doing, he became the protector of others. The neighbor- 
hood turned gladly to any strong man as its defender and master. 

Weaker landlords sur- 
rendered (" commended ") 
their lands to him, receiv- 
ing them back as "fiefs." 
They became his vassals; 
he became their /ore/. The 
former " free peasants," 
on the lord's own lands 
and on the lands of his 
vassals, saw that they 
were no longer at the 
mercy of any chance ma- 
rauder. They ventured 
again to plow and sow, 
and perhaps they were 
permitted in part to reap. 
On their pra't, they culti- 
^•ated also the lord 's crop, 
and paid him dvies for 
house, for cattle, and for 
each sale or inheritance. 
The village became his 
village; the inhabitants, 
his villeins. Fugitive 
wretches, too, without the 
old resident's claim to consideration, gathered on the lord's lands 
to receive such measure of mercy as he might grant, and usually 
sank into the class of serfs (p. 23), of whom there were already 
many on all estates. 

In return for the protection he gave, the lord assumed 
great privileges, unspeakably obnoxious in later centuries, but 




Entrance to a Feudal Castle. — From 
Gautier's La Chevalerie. The draw- 
bridge crossed the moat, or ditch, that 
surrounded a castle. When it was 
raised, the portcullis (whose massive iron 
teeth can be seen in the doorway) was 
let fall. 



FEUDALISM 



61 



in their origin connected with some benefit. The noble slew Origin of 

the wild beast — and came to have the sole right to hunt. . f®""^^ 

° _ pnvileges of 

As organizer of labor, he forced the villeins to build the mill the nobles 
{his mill), the oven, the ferry, the bridge, the highway ; then 
he took toll for the use of each, and later he demolished mills 
that the villeins wished to build for themselves. 




BoDiAM Castle in Englamj — pi-es^'ut i-oiuiiticm of a fine medieval struc- 
ture. Note the water in the moat. The student will find in encyclope- 
dias some interesting history for this castle. 



After the Teutonic conquests of the fifth century, most 
common Teutonic freemen became small farmers. By 
these changes of the ninth century this free class almost 
disappeared from France, though it still survived in 
England. 

Finally each district had its body of mailed horsemen and its 
circle of frowning castles. These two features typify the new 
order — which we call feudalism. 

Castles rose at every ford and above each mountain pass 
and on every hill commanding a fertile plain. At first the 



62 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



The 

feudal 

castle 



"castles" were mere wooden blockhouses; but soon they grew 
into those enormous structures of massive stone, crowned by 
frowning battlements and inclosing many acres of ground, 
whose picturesque gray ruins still dot the landscape in Europe. 
Upon even the early and simple castle, the Norse invader 
spent his force in vain ; and the mailed horsemen kept him from 
ravaging the open country. The old 
Frankish infantry had proved too slow to 
bring to bay the nomad Hungarians on 
their agile shaggy ponies, or the Danes with 
their swift boats. But now each castle was 
ready to pour forth its band of trained 
men-at-arms (horsemen in mail), either to 
gather with other bands into an army, or 
l)y themselves to cut off stragglers and hold 
the fords. The raider's day was over — 
but meanwhile the old Teutonic militia, in 
which every freeman had his place, had 
given way to an ironclad cavalry, the re- 
sistless weapon of a new feudal aristocracy, 
which could ride down foot-soldiers {infan- 
try) at will — till the invention of gunpow- 
der, centuries later, helped again to make 
fighting men equal. 

In government, feudalism was extreme 
decentralization. Each petty district was 
practically independent of every other dis- 
trict. The king had been expected to protect every corner 
of his realm. Actually he had protected only some central 
district ; but under feudalism each little chieftain proved able 
to protect his small corner, when he had seized the king's powers 
there. His territory was a little state. The great nobles coined 
money and made war like very kings. Indeed a 2^assal owed 
allegiance to his overlords two or more grades above him only 
through the one overlord just above him. He must follow his 
immediate lord to war against them and even against his king. 




Knight in Plate 
Armor, vi.sor up. 
— From Lacroix, 
Vie Militaire. Plate 
armor came in only 
about 1300, suc- 
ceeding a lighter 
armor of chain mail. 



FEUDALISM 



63 



This decentralization was the result not only of military needs Economic 

but also of economic ^ needs — of the lack of money and ?*"!®f. °* 

^ feudalism 

the lack of roads. The rich man's wealth was all in land ; 
and he could make his land pay him only by renting it out for 
services or for produce. "Nobles" paid him for parts of it 
by fighting for him. Workers paid him for other parts by rais- 
ing and harvesting his crops and by giving him part of their 





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:^^«3=saSE¥.- -ta*/ •. 


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^^B 


^^^m 


P^^y^l 


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[^^^B^H^K 


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•flp\%"^4'^ ^i-^0s^- "■ 


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WmS^ 


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M^£^l 




»'"'"■, 



An Act of Homage. — From a twelfth century manuscript. 



own. A man without land was glad to pay for the use of some 
in one way or the other. 

In theory, the holder of any piece of land was a tenant of some 
higher landlord. The king was the supreme landlord. He let 
out most of the land of the kingdom, on terms of military serv- 
ice, to great vassals who swore fealty to him. Each of these 
parceled out most of what he received, on like terms, to smaller 
vassals; and so on, perhaps through six or seven steps, until 
the smallest division was reached that could support a mailed 
horseman for the noble's life of fighting. 

• Economics refers to wealth, as politics does to government. 



Feudal 
land- 
holding 



64 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Lords 

and vassals 




A Barox's Court. — From a sixteenth 
century woodcut. 



In practice, there was no such regularity. The various grades 
were interlocked in the most confusing way. Except for the 
smallest knights, all landlords of the fighting class were " suze- 
rains" (liege lords) ; and, except perhaps the king, all were 
vassals. There was no great social distinction between lord 
and vassals. They lived on terms of familiarity and mutual 
respect. The "vassal" was always a "noble," and his service 
was always "honorable," — never to l)e confounded with the 

"ignoble" service paid by 
serfs and villeins. 

The relation between 
suzerain and vassal had the 
character of a bargain for 
mutual advantage. The 
vassal was to present him- 
sdf at the calj of his lord 
to serve in war, with fol- 
lowers according to the size 
of his fief, but only for 
short terms and usually not to go "out of the realm." He 
must also serve in the lord's "court" twice or thrice a year, to 
advise in matters of policy and to give judgment in disputes 
between vassals. He did not pay "taxes," in our sense, but on 
frequent occasions he did have to make to the lord certain 
financial contributions — "reliefs" and "aids." The lord, on 
his part, was bound to defend his vassal, to treat him justly, 
and to see that he found just treatment from his co-vassals. 

Feudal theory, then, paid elaborate regard to rights; but 
feudal practice loas mainly a matter of force. There was no 
adequate machinery for obtaining justice: it was not easy 
to enforce the decisions of the crude courts against a noble 
offender who chose to resist. War, too, was thought the most 
honorable and perhaps the most religious way to settle dis- 
putes. Like the trial by combat, it was considered an appeal 
to the judgment of God. Naturally, "private wars," between 
noble and noble, became a chief evil of the age. They hindered 



FEUDALISM 



65 




An Ancient Manor House, Melichope, 
England. — From Wright's Homes of 
Other Days. 



the growth of industry, and commonly they hurt neutral parties 

quite as much as they hurt belligerents. There was little actual 

suffering by the warring 

nobles, and very little 

heroism. Indeed, there 

was little actual fighting. 

The weaker party usually 

shut itself up in its castle. 

The stronger side ravaged 

the villages in the neigh- 
borhood, driving off the 

cattle and perhaps tortur- 
ing the peasants for their 

small hidden treasures, 

and outraging the women. 

Clergy and nobles, praying class and fighting class, were The 

supported by a vastly larger number of " ignoble" workers, who jjjanor 

were usually referred to only 
as other live sto<»k might be 
mentioned. Each noble had to 
keep some of his land for the 
support of his own household 
and for other revenue. This 
"domain" land was cultivated 
by the lord's serfs and villeins, 
under direction of a bailiff, or 
steward. The peasant workers 
did not live in scattered farm- 
houses, each on its own field : 
they were grouped in little 
villages of twenty or fifty dwell- 
ings, as in Europe to-day. 
Such a village, with its adjoining 
"fields," was a "manor." 
Each manor had its church, at a little distance, and usually 
its manor house — the lord's castle on a hill above the other 




Interior View of the Window 
Shown in Melichope Manor 
House. The wall was so deep 
that the stairway was cut into it. 



G6 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Serfs 

and 

villeins 



dwellings, or maybe a house only a trifle better than the homes 
of the villeins, used by the lord's steward. At one end of the 
street stood the lord's smithy ; and near by, on some convenient 
stream, was the lord's mill. 

As in the last Roman days, the serf was bound to the 
soil by law : he could not leave it, but neither could he be sold 
apart from it. He had his own bit of ground to cultivate, at 

such times as the lord's 
bailiff did not call him 
to labor on the lord's 
land. Usually the 
bailiff summoned the 
serfs in turn, each for 
two or for three days 
each week ; but in har- 
vest or haying he might 
keep them all busy, to 
the ruin of their own 
little crops. If the serf 
did get a crop, he had 
to pay a large part of 
it for the use of his 
land. He paid also a 
multitude of other dues 
and fines — sometimes 
in money, but usually "in kind," — eggs, a goose, a cock, a 
calf, a portion of grain. 

The mllcin was a step higher. He was "free" in person. 
That is, he could leave his land and change lords at will ; but 
he had to have some lord. The landless and masterless man was 
an outlaw, at the mercy of any lord. In profits from labor and in 
manner of life, there was little to choose between serf and villein. 
The peasant homes, ^ serf's or villein's, were low, filthy, 

1 The most graphic treatments of peasant life are in Jessopp's Friars, 
87-112; Jenks' Edward Plantagenet, 46-52; and in Cheyney's Industrial 
and Social History of England, 31-52. 




ViLLKixs. Receiving Dikections. — From a 
miniature in a fifteenth century manuscript. 



LIFE AND WORK IN THE FEUDAL AGE 



67 



earth-floored, straw-thatched, one-room hovels of wood and 
sticks plastered together with mud. There was no chimney 
except a hole in the roof, and usually no other opening (no 
window) except the door. These homes straggled along either 
side of an irregular lane, where poultry, pigs, and children 
played together in the dirt. Behind each house was its weedy 
garden patch and its low stable and barn. These last were 
often under the same roof as the living room of the family, — as 
is still true sometimes in parts of Germany. 



Homes of 

the 

peasants 




A Reaper's Cart Going Uphill. — After Jusserand's English Wayfaring 
Life; from a fourteenth century manuscript. The force of men and 
horses indicates the nature of the roads. The steepness of the hill is, of 
course, exaggerated, so as to fit the picture to the space in the manuscript. 

The house, small as it was, was not cluttered with furniture. 
A handmill for grinding meal, or at least a stone mortar 
in which to crush grain, a pot and kettle, possibly a feather 
bed, one or two rude benches, and a few tools for the peasant's 
work, made up the contents of even the well-to-do homes. 

Farming was very crude. The ploidand urns diinded into 
three great "fields." These were unfenced, and lay about the 
village at any convenient spots. One field was sown to wheat 
(in the fall) ; one to rye or barley (in the spring) ; and the third 
lay fallow, to recuperate. The next year this third field would 
be the wheat land, while the old wheat field would raise the 



Cultivation 
of the 
land in 
common 



68 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Small 
variety 
in food 



barley, and so on. This primitive "rotation of crops" kept a 
third of the land idle. 

Every "field" was divided into a great number of narrow 
strips, each as nearly as possible a "furrow-long," and one, two, 
or four rods wide, so that each contained from a quarter of an 
acre to an acre. Usually the strips were separated by "balks," 
or ridges of turf. A peasant's holcTing was about thirty acres, 
ten acres in each "field" ; and his share in each lay not in one 

piece, but in fifteen or 
thirty scattered strips. 
This kind of holding 
compelled a " com- 
mon " cultivation. 
That is, each man must 
sow what his neighbor 
sowed ; and as a rule, 
each could sow, till, 
and harvest only when 
his neighbors did. 
Serfs were not intelli- 
gent or willing workers, 
and even the lord's 
stewards did not know 
how to get good returns 
from the land. Three- 
fold the seed, or six 
bushels of wheat to the 
acre, was a good crop in 
the thirteenth century. 
Farm animals were small. The wooden plow required eight 
oxen, and then it did hardly more than scratch the surface of 
the ground. Carts were few and cumbrous. There was little 
or no cultivation of root foods. Potatoes, of course, were un- 
known. Sometimes a few turnips and cabbages and carrots, 
rather uneatable varieties probably, were grown in garden 
plots behind the houses. Beer was brewed from the barley. 




Peasants' May Dance. — From a miniature 
in the Biblioth^que Nationale in Paris. 
The dress at least is idealized. 



LIFE AND WORK IN THE FEUDAL AGE 



69 



Well-to-do peasants had a hive of bees in the garden plot. 
Honey was the chief luxury of the poor: sugar was still un- 
known in Europe. 

The most important crop was the wild hay, upon which the 
cattle had to be fed during the winter. Meadowland was twice 
as valuable as plowland. The meadow was fenced for the hay 
harvest, but was afterward thrown open for pasture. Usually 




f''^^H^^ 



""l<l*ll!llUf',^,_.^^_ 



Falconry. — From a medieval manuscript reproduced by Lacroix. A 
falconer, to capture and train young hawks to bring game to the master, 
was among the most trusted under-officials of each castle. 

there were other more distant but extensive pasture and wood 
lands, where lord and villagers fattened their cattle and swine. 

It was difficult to carry enough animals through the winter 
for the necessary farm work and breeding ; so those to be used 
for food were killed in the fall and salted down. The large use 
of salt meat and the little variety in food caused loathsome 
diseases. 

Each village was a world by itself. Even the different villages Life in 
of the same lord had little intercourse with one another. The manor 
lord's bailiff secured from some distant market the three outside 



70 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



products needed, — salt, millstones, and iron for the plow- 
shares and for other tools. Except for this, a village was 
hardly touched by the outside world — unless a war desolated 
it, or a royal procession chanced to pass through it. 

This shut-in life seems to us cheerless and degrading and 
often indescribably ferocious and indecent. Pictures in manu- 
scripts of the time, however, show that it had occasional 




The Exercise of the Quintain. — This shows an important part of the 
schooling of noble children. The boys ride, by turns, at the wooden 
figure. If the rider strikes the shield squarely in the center, it is well. If 
he hits only a glancing blow, the wooden figure swings on its foot and 
whacks him with its club as he passes. 



Life in 
the castle 



festivities ; and at least it was a step up from the slavery 
of earlier times. 

The noble classes lived a life hardly more attractive to us. 
They dwelt in gloomy fortresses over dark dungeons where 
prisoners rotted. They had fighting for business, and hunting 
with hound and hawk, and playing at fighting (in tournament 
and joust), for pleasures. The ladies busied themselves over 
tapestries and embroideries, in the chambers. Gay pages 



LIFE AND WORK IN THE FEUDAL AGE 



71 



Feasting 
and story 
telling 



flitted through the halls, or played at chess in the deep windows. 
And in the courtyard lounged gruff men-at-arms, ready with 
blind obedience to follow the lord of the castle on any foray 
or even in an attack upon their king. 

The noble hunted for food, quite as much as for sport, and Hunting 
he did not suffer from lack of fresh meat. The game in forest 
and stream was his : for a common man to kill deer or hare or 
wild duck or trout, was to lose hand or eyes 
or life. 

Feasting filled a large part of the noble's 
life. Meals were served in the great hall of 
the castle, and were the social hours of the 
day. Tables were set out on movable trestles, 
and the household, visitors, and dependents 
gathered about them on seats and benches, 
with nice respect for rank, — the master and 
his noblest guests at the head, on a raised 
platform, or "dais," and the lowest servants 
toward the bottom of the long line. A pro- 
fusion of food in many courses, especially at 
the midday "dinner," was carried in from the 
kitchen across the open courtyard. Peacocks, 
swans, whole boars, or at least boar heads, 
were among the favorite roasts ; and huge 
venison " pies " were a common dish. Mother 
Goose's "four and twenty blackbirds" had real models in many 
a medieval pasty, which, when opened, let live birds escape, to 
be hunted down among the rafters of the hall by falcons. 

At each guest's place was a knife, to cut slices from the roasts 
within his reach, and a spoon for broths, but no fork or napkin 
or plate. ' Each one dipped his hand into the pasties, carrying 
the dripping food directly to his mouth. Loaves of bread 
were crumbled up and rolled between the hand to wipe off the 
surplus gravy, and then thrown to the dogs under the tables ; 
and between courses, servants passed basins of water and 
towels. The food was washed down with huge draughts of 




A Court Fool. — 
After a medieval 
miniature in bril- 
liant colors. Many 
great lords kept 
such jesters. 



72 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



wine, usually diluted with water. Intervals between courses 
were filled with story-telling and song, or by rude jokes from 
the lord's "fool," or perhaps traveling jugglers were brought in 
to entertain the company. 




Jugglers. — From a thirteenth century manuscript. 



IV. THE CHURCH IN THE FEUDAL AGE 

The church in the feudal age was not only a religious organiza- 
tion : it was also a government. Its officers exercised many 
powers that have now been handed over to civil ^ officers. 
Public order depended upon it almost as completely as did 
private morals. With its spiritual thunders and the threat of 
its curse, it often protected the widow and orphan, and others 
in danger of oppression, from brutal barons who had respect 
for no earthly power. 

All Christendom was made up of parishes, — the smallest 
church units. Common'y, a parish was a farming village (a 
manor) or a part of a town. At its head was a priest, who, in 
large city parishes, was assisted by deacons to look after the 
poor. 

A group of parishes made up the diocese of a bishop. Nearly 
every town of any consequence in the twelfth century was a 
bishop's seat, and so gained the name city. The bishop was 
the mainspring in church government. He was revered as 
the successor of the apostles, and was subject only to the 

• Civil is used very commonly in contrast to ecclesiastical. 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 73 

guidance of the pope, who was successor to the chief of the 
apostles. Originally, the bishop's special duty had been to over- 
see the parish priests ; but, with the growth of the cliurch, 
he had come to ha\e other functions. He was a great feudal 
landlord, owing military service to one or more suzerains, 
and holding power over many temporal vassals. He had 
charge of extensive church property in his diocese, and of the 
collection of church revenues. And he looked after the enforce- 
ment of the laws of the church. This "canon law" had grown Bishops' 
into a complex system. To administer justice .under it, each ^°^^^ 
bishop held a court, made up of trained churchmen, over which 
he presided. This court had jurisdiction not merely over 
matters pertaining to the church : it tried any case that involved 
a clergyman or any one else under the special protection of 
the church. 

To help in these duties, the bishop had a body of assistant 
clergy called canons. On the death of the bishop, this body 
(the "cathedral chapter") chose his successor, — subject per- 
haps to the approval of some king or other temporal ruler. 

This right of the clergy to be tried in clerical courts was Benefit 

known as "benefit of clergy." The practice had its good side. °* 

clcrKv 
Ordinary courts and ordinary law partook of the violent and 

ferocious life of the age. Trials were rude ; and ghastly punish- 
ments were inflicted for trivial offenses, — often, no doubt, 
upon the innocent. It was a gain when the peaceful and moral 
part of society secured the right to trial in more intelligent courts 
and by more civilized codes. Moreover, in the Middle Ages, 
all corporations, even trade gilds, very commonly had courts 
with considerable power of jurisdiction over their own members. 
It was natural, therefore, for the church to have like powers 
over its clergy. 

But the church law was too mild to deal with serious crimes. 
Its advantages tempted men to "take Holy Orders," until, 
besides the preaching clergy and the monks, the land swarmed 
with " clerics" who were really only lawyers, secretaries, scholars. 



74 



BRIEF SURVP]Y OP EARLIER PROGRESS 



The arch- 
bishop 



The pope 



College of 
cardinals 



Excommu- 
nication 



teachers, or mere adventurers. Some of these, by their crimes, 
brought disgrace upon the church and danger to the state. 

A number of dioceses made up a province, — which was usu- 
ally one of the old divisions of that name under the Roman 
Empire. Over each province, seated in its most important 
city, was an archbishop, or metropolitan. The archbishop 
was a bishop also of one diocese, and he had a general super- 
vision, but not a very definite one, over the other bishops of 
the province. His court, too, heard appeals from theirs. 

At the head of all this church hierarchy stood the pope, the 
spiritual monarch of Christendom. He was supreme lawgiver, 
supreme judge, supreme executive. He issued new laws in the 
form of hulls (so-called from the gold seal, or bulla, on the docu- 
ments), and he set aside old laws by his dispensations, — as 
when it seemed best to him to permit cousins to marry (a thing 
forbidden by the canon law). His court heard appeals from 
the courts of bishop and archbishop, and likewise from many 
of the temporal courts of Christendom. Now and then he 
set aside appointments of bishops and other clergy, and himself 
filled the vacancies. At times he also sent legates into different 
countries, to represent his authority directly. A legate could 
revoke the judgment of a bishop's court, remove bishops, and 
haughtily command obedience from kings, — quite as Shakspere 
pictures in his King John. 

For aid in his high office, the pope gathered about him a 
"college^ of cardinals." At first this body comprised only seven 
bishops of Rome and its vicinity ; but it grew finally to include 
great churchmen in all countries. 

To compel obedience, bishops and pope had two mighty 
weapons — excommunication and interdict. An excommuni- 
cated man was shut out from all religious communion. He 
could attend no church service, receive no sacrament, and at 
death, if still unforgiven, his body could not receive Christian 
burial. Excommunication was also a boycott for all social 



' "College," in this sense, means merely a "collection" of people. 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH- 



75 



and business relations. If obeyed by the community, it cut a 
man oflP absolutely from all communication with his fellows, and 
made him an outlaw. No one might speak to him or give him 
food or shelter, under danger of similar penalty, and his very 
presence was shunned like the pestilence. 

What excommunication was to the individual, the interdict Interdict 
was to a district or a nation. Churches were closed, and no 
religious ceremonies were permitted, except the rites of baptism 
and of extreme unction. No marriage could be performed, and 
there could be no burial in consecrated ground. "The dead 
were left unburied, and the living were unblessed." 



Thus the church was a vast centralized monarchy, with its 
regular officers, its laws and legislatures and judges, its taxes, 
its terrible. punishments — and its promise of eternal reward. 

And yet this government was more democratic in spirit than The de- 

feudal society was. Men of humblest birth often rose to its ^o^^'^y °^ 
" . the church 

loftiest offices. Gregory VII, who set his foot upon the neck 
of the mightiest king in Europe, was the son of a poor peasant. 
The church was the only part of society in the Middle Ages 
where study and intellectual ability could lift a poor boy to 
power — and so it was recruited by the best minds. 

Of all this mighty organization, the village priest brought The priest 
the church closest home to the mass of the people. The great ^"^ *^.^ 
ecclesiastics — bishops, archbishops, and abbots — were often of the 
from the noble class by birth, and in anj^ case they always be- ^"^^^e 
came part of the aristocracy. But the rural priest was com- 
monly a peasant in origin, and he often remained essentially a 
peasant in his life, — marrying in the village (until the eleventh 
century) and working in the fields with his neighbors. He was 
a peasant with a somewhat better income than his fellows, 
with a little learning, a revered position, and with great power 
for good. He christened, absolved, married,, and buried his 
parishioners, looked after their bodily welfare so far as he knew 
how, comforted the heart-sore and wretched, and taught all, 
by word and example, to hold fast to right living. 



76 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



The church building ivas also the social center of the parish. 
Near it, on Sunday, between the sacred services, the people 
found their chief recreation in sports and games. And from 
its steps the priest gave to them what news they received from 
the outside world, reading aloud there, too, any rare letter 
that some adventurous wanderer might be able to get written 
for him by some stranger-priest. 

From time to time new organs developed within the 
church to meet new needs. In the twelfth century, when, as 
we shall see, towns began to grow up, these did not fit into the 
old organization of the church. Neither parish priests nor monks 
took care of the religious needs of the new, crowded populations. 
The poorer inhabitants were miserable in body, too, beyond all 
words, — fever and plague stricken, perishing of want and filth 
and wretchedness such as no modern city knows. But early in 
the thirteenth century, these conditions, together with the spread 
of heretical movements, called forth a general religious revival, 
with the rise of two new religious orders — the Franciscan and 
the Dominican brotherhoods. 

These "begging friars" went forth, two and two, to the poor 
and the outcasts, living from day to day in the midst of noisome 
wretchedness, to act as healers and preachers. They nursed 
lepers, ministered to the poor, and with short, homely speech, 
preached to all the love of Christ and the call to turn from sin. 
They were missionary monks. 



V. ENGLAND IN THE FEUDAL AGE 

The splendid story of England for the thousand years from 
Alfred the Great to the present day is also, most of it, the story 
of the foundations of American liberty. And so, even in this 
brief " survey," that story is told more fully than other topics are. 

Long before the year 1000 the Saxons in England had learned 
to work many forms of local self-government — to manage many 
of their own affairs at their own doors, not only in village 
(manor) "courts," but also in courts (assemblies) of the larger 
units, the hundreds and shires (counties). Moreover, they had 



ENGLAND IN THE FEUDAL AGE 



77 




become familiar with the practice of sending a sort of representa- 
tive from the village to these larger assemblies — since all men 
could not attend these in person. 

True, after the year 900 an irregular Saxon feudalism had been 
growing up; and these local "courts" had fallen largely under 
the control of neighboring landlords. Still enough activity 
among the people themselves survived so that these assemblies, 
with their representative 
principle, were to prove the 
cradle of later English and 
American liberty. 

In 1066 came the Nor- 
man Conquest. In long 
succession in earlier times, 
conquering Briton, Roman, 

Saxon, Dane, had brought 

, , . , . Plowing. — From an Anglo-Saxon manu- 

m each his peculiar con- s^^ipt in the British Museum. 

tributions. Now for the 

last time in history a host of conquering invaders established 
themselves in the island. A century and a half before, Norse 
pirates had settled in a province of northern France. In that 
district of Normandy, they had quickly become leaders in 
Frankish "civilization," and now they transplanted it among 
the ruder Saxons of England, along with much new blood and 
new elements in language. 

For our purpose here, the most important Norman contribu- 
tion was his contribution in government. Since the time of 
Alfred, the chief dangers to England had been (1) a possible 
splitting apart of Danish north and Saxon south, and (2) the 
growth of feudal anarchy. The Norman crushed the old north 
and south into one, and built up a central government strong 
enough to control the feudal nobles and to prevent them from 
dividing the kingly power among themselves. 

Local institutions, in the main, remained Saxon, but the 
central government gained a new efficiency from the Norman 
genius for organization. 



Saxon 
feudalism 



A more 
efficient 
central 
government 



78 



BRIEF SURVEY OP EARLIER PROGRESS 



A thousand- 
year 
struggle 
for liberty 



At the same time, the Norman kings were not supreme 
enough to become absolute despots. This was chiefly because, 
through dread of the new royal power, conquering Norman 
noble and conquered Saxon people drew together quickly into 
an English nation — the first true nation of Europe. Then, in 
centuries of slow, determined progress, this new nation won 
constitutional liberty. 

"Lance and torch and tumult, steel and gray-goose wing. 
Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the king." 




Battle of Hastings. — From the Bayeux Tapestry. The Bayeux Tapes- 
try is a linen band 230 feet long and 20 inches wide, embroidered in colored 
worsteds, with 72 scenes illustrating the Norman Conquest. It was a con- 
temporary work. The scene given here pertains to the close of the battle. 
Harold, the Saxon king, supported by his chosen hus-carles, is making 
the final stand, beneath the Dragon standard against the Norman horse. 

And not merely by fighting in the field was this liberty won, 
but, even more, by countless almost unrecorded martyrdoms 
of heroic and often nameless men, on the scaffold, in the dun- 
geon, or, harder still, in broken lives and ruined homes. Thus 
did Englishmen, at a great price, work out, first of all peoples 
for a large territory, the union of a strong central government 
and of free institutions. 

The Conquest drew isolated England back into the thick 
of continental politics. Henry II (1154-1189) was the most 



ENGLAND IN THE FEUDAL AGE 



79 



powerful monarch of Europe, ruling not only England but more Reforms of 

than half France as well — as a nominal vassal of the French ^^^^ ^^ 

in the 

king. Still all the really important results of his long and busy law courts 
reign came in England. Preeminent stands out the organization 




A Norman Door in Canterbury Cathedral. — Note the massive 
round arch and the simple but effective ornament. 



of the English courts of justice, with circuit judges to spread 
a "common" law throughout the entire realm — in place of 
the varying local customs found in feudal courts in the con- 
tinental countries. At this same time came the development 



80 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Circuit 
judges and 
the Common 
Law 



of our grand jury and also of our trial jury. Henry's reforms, 
as completed a century later by the great Edward, gave us the 
English judicial system of the present day in almost every 
particular. 

Between the great Henry and the even greater Edward came 
three weak, would-be tyrants — Richard, John, and the third 
Henry. The misrule of John resulted in Magna Carta; that 
of Henrv, in the first true Parliament. 



I 

f 
1 



f 



Mla 












K. 




Facsimile (heduled) uf the Opening of Magna Cakta. — The es- 
cutcheons in the margin are later embellishments. They are supposed 
to be the coats of arms of barons who signed as witnesses. 

1. In 1215, in a grassy meadow of the Thajnes called Runny- 
mede, the tyrant John, backed only by a few mercenaries and 
confronted by a people in arms, found himself forced to sign 
the Great Charter, "the first great document in the Bible of 
English Liberties." 

In the, main, the charter merely restated ancient liberties ; 
but the closing provision expressly sanctioned rebellion against 
a king who should refuse to obey it. That is, it set the law of 
the land above the king's will. True, in some other countries 



GROWTH OF ENGLISH LIBERTY 



81 



during the Middle Ages, the great vassals extorted charters of 
liberties for themselves from their kings. But the peculiar 
features of this Charter are : (1) the barons promised to their 
dependents the same rights they demanded for themselves fronj 
the king; and (2) special provisions looked after the welfare 
of townsmen and even of villeins. The wording, necessarily, 
belongs to a feudal age ; }>ut, as a new society and new needs 
grew up, men read new meanings into the old language and 
made it fit the new age. In the next two centuries, English 
kings were obliged to "confirm" it thirty-eight times; and its 
principles, and some of its wording, have passed into the con- 
stitution and laws of every American state. 

The Charter defined precisely the "aids" to which suzerains 
were entitled, — and so put an end to extortion. It declared 
that the king could raise no scutage ^ or other unusual "aid" 
from his vassals without the consent of the Great Council, — and 
since all vassals of the king had a right to attend this Council, 
this provision established the principle, No taxation without 
the consent of the taxed. It declared an accused man entitled 
to speedy trial, — and so laid the foundation for later laws of 
"habeas corpus." It affirmed that no villein, by any fine, 
should lose his oxen or plow, and so foreshadowed our modern 
laws providing that legal suits shall not take from a man his 
home or his tools. 

2. Henry II and Edward I were the two great "lawgivers" 
among the English kings. But Henry carried his many 
reforms, not by royal decrees, but by a series of "assizes" 
(codes) drawn up by the Great Council ; and Edward carried 
his in an even longer series of "statutes" enacted by a new 
national legislature which we call Parliament. 

Some sort of " Assembly " has always made part of the English 
government. Under the Saxon kings, the Witan (or meeting of 
Wisemen) sanctioned codes of laws and even deposed and elected 
kings. It consisted of large landowners and officials and the 
higher clergy, with now and then some mingling of more 

* A sort of war tax recently introduced in the place of military service. 



And 

American 

liberty 



The 

beginnings 
of 
Parliament 



82 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

democratic elements, and it was far more powerful than the 
Frankish Mayfield. 

After the Conquest, the Witan gave way to the Great Coiincil 
pi the Norman kings. This was a feudal gathering — made 
up of lords and bishops, resembling the Witan, but more aris- 
tocratic, and less powerful. A king was supposed to rule "with 
the advice and consent" of his Council; but in practice that 
body was merely the king's mouthpiece until Henry II raised 
it to real importance. 

Magna Carta prescribed just how the Council should be called 
together. All who held land directly of the king ("tenants- 
in-chief," or "barons") were entitled to be present, but only 
the "great barons" ever came. According to the Charter, 
thereafter the great barons were to be summoned individually 
by letter, and the numerous smaller barons by a general notice 
read by the sheriffs in the court of each county. 

Still the smaller barons failed to assemble; and in the trou- 
bles of the reign of Henry III, on two or three occasions, the 
sheriffs had been directed to see to it that each county sent 
knights to the gathering. Thus a representative element was 
introduced into the National Assembly. 

This was a thoroughly natural step for Englishmen to 
take. The principle of representative government was no 
way new to them. It had taken root long before in local 
. institutions. The "four men" of each township present in 
court of hundred or shire (p. 76) spoke for all their town- 
ship. The sworn "jurors" of a shire who gave testimony 
in compiling Domesday Book under William I, or who 
"presented" offenders for trial under Henry II, spoke for 
the whole shire. England was familiar with the -practice 
of selecting certain men from a community to speak for the 
community as a whole. The same principle was now 
applied in a larger, central gathering, for all England. 

Then in 1265 the glorious rebel, Simon of Montfort, gave 
us a real "Parliament." He had been leading the people 



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RISE OF THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT 



83 



against the weak, ill-ruling king, and had made him prisoner, The 
and now he called a national assembly to settle the government, of^jeT*" ^ 
This time not only was each shire invited to send two knights, and 1295 
but each borough (town) to send two burgesses, to sit with the 
usual lords. Simon wanted the moral support of the nation, to 
be given by an assembly representing all classes. The " Great 
Council of royal vassals" 
was replaced by a " Par- 
liamenV representing the 
people of England. Then, 
in 1295, after some varia- 
tions, Edward adopted this 
model of Simon's; and for 
the first time in history 
representative government 
was firmly established for 
a nation. 

Half a century later, 
Parliament divided into 
two Houses. Edward's 
"Model Parliament" of 
1295, like Simon's, con- 
tained the "three estates" ^ 
— clergy, nobles, and bur- 
gesses. The greater nobles 
and the greater clergy had 

personal summons ; the other classes were represented by dele- 
gates, — the smaller landholders by the elected " knights of the 
shire," the towns by their chosen burgesses, and the lower clergy 
by elected representatives, one for each district. 

At first all sat together. Had this continued, the townsmen 
would never have secured much voice : they would have been 
frightened and overawed by the nobles. The result would 
have been about as bad if the three estates had come to sit 

1 "Estate," so used, means a class of people with distinct duties and 
privileges. 




The two 
" Houses 



The Hall of Stoke Manor House, a 
very modest "castle" of the thirteenth 
century in England. — From Wright's 
Homes of Other Days. 



84 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



separately, as they did in France and Spain. With so many 
distinct orders, an able king could easily have played off one 
against the other. But England followed a different course. The 
inferior clergy, very happily, soon refused to attend Parliament. 
The great spiritual lords (bishops and abbots), with personal 
summons, were not very numerous by themselves, and so they 
sat with the great lay lords. Thus, .when the different orders 




English Family Dinner. — From a fourteenth century manuscript. 
Note the dogs, the musicians, and the barefooted monk, at whom the 
jester is directing some witticism. 



began to sit apart, the great peers, lay and spiritual, who were 
summoned by individual letters, made a "House of Lords," 
while the representative elements — knights of the shire and 
burgesses, who had been accustomed to act together in shire 
courts — came together, in the national assembly, as the " House 
of Commons." 

The three estates faded into two;, and even these two were not 
distinct. For in England, unlike the case upon the continent, 
only the oldest son of a lord succeeded to his father's title and 




yoRTM as A 






ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 
1154-1453c 



SCALE OF MILES 



JAmit of the French Kingdom 

PoBBeMum* of Plantaffsnet Kinff»_ 

Lands of the French Kings 

Independent FUfe in France _ 



Territory of Charlee the B^Ad ofBurgundy^ 



FRANCE IN THE FEUDAL AGE 



85 



nobility, and to the right to a personal summons to the House The 
of Lords. The younger sons — and even the oldest son during f^J^^u _ 
his father's life — belonged in the gentry (gentleman) class, tween 
and at most were "knights of the shire." As such, oftentimes, ^^^^ 
the son or the brother of an earl sat for his county in the House "Commons" 
of Commons beside the shopkeeper from the town. The gentry 
in the Commons formed a link to hind Lords and Commons to- 
gether. 



VI. OTHER LANDS IN THE FEUDAL AGE 

In 987 in France the degenerate Carolingian ^ line gave way 
to Hugh Capet, founder of the long line of Capetian kings. 
Hugh Capet found France broken into feudal fragments. 
These, in the next three centuries, he and his descendants 
welded into a new French nation. 
It teas not the people here who fused 
themselves into a nation in a long 
struggle against royal despotism, as 
in England: it was the kings loho 
made the French nation, in a long 
struggle against feudal anarchy 
within and foreign conquest from 
without. 

Philip Augustus (1180-1223) at 
the opening of his reign ruled 
directly only one twelfth of modern 
France — only one sixth as much of 
it as was then ruled by Henry H of 
England — and held not one seaport. At the close of his reign 
Philip ruled directly two thirds of France. The consolidation 
of the realm was mainly completed by his grandson, Louis IX 
(St. Louis), and by Louis' grandson, Philip the Fair (1285-1314). 

And as the kings won the soil of France piece by piece, so 
too they added gradually to the royal power, until this Philip 

' The name Carolingian, from Carolus, the Latin form of Charles, is applied 
to all the rulers of Charlemagne's line. 




France in 
the feudal 
age 



Jugglers in the Sword 
Dance. — From a thirteenth 
century manuscript. 



Growth of 
the king's 
territory 



Growth of 
royal power 



86 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

the Fair and his successors tvere the most autocratic sovereigns in 
Europe in their day. France was divided into districts ruled 
by royal officers. Each such appointed officer, as representative 
of the king, held vast power, appointing all inferior officers in 
his district, collecting the royal revenues, and controlling the 
administration in every detail. These royal officers were chosen 
from men of humble birth — that they might not aspire too much. 
The feudal lords had lost all authority except over their serfs 
and villeins; the small vassals and their townsmen were pro- 
tected now from their rapacity and capricious tyranny. In 
England this escape had come, a little earlier, through the courts, 
the itinerant justices, and the free principles of the common law ; 
and Englishmen grew to have an instinctive reverence for 
courts and law^ as the protectors of liberty. In France the 
like security came through the despotic power intrusted to their 
officers by the absolute French kings ; and for centuries Frenchmen 
came to trust autocracy as Englishmen trusted law. 
The This contrast is shown, in part, in the history of the French 

Estates institution which most resembled the English Parliament. 

Philip the Fair completed his reforms by adding representatives 
of the towns to the nobles and clergy in the Great Council of 
France. This brought together all three "estates"; and the 
gathering was called the Estates General, to distinguish it from 
smaller gatherings in the separate provinces. The first meet- 
ing in this form was held in 1302, only a few years after the 
"Model Parliament" in England. But Philip and his successors 
used the Estates General only as a convenient taxing machine. 
It never became a governing body, as the English Parliament did. 
Nor did the French people know how to value it, as the English 
quickly learned to value Parliament. The kings assembled the 
Estates General only when they chose, and easily controlled it. 
When they no longer needed it, the meetings grew rarer, and 
finally ceased, vnthout protest by the people. 

In Germany the Carolingian line died out even sooner than 
in France, and then the princes chose a Saxon duke for King 



GERMAN COLONIZATION 

ON THE EAST AT THE 

EXPENSE OF SLAVS, LETTS, 

AND MAGYARS, 8001400. 




GERMANY IN THE FEUDAL AGE 



87 



of the Germans. The second of these Saxon kings was Otto I 
(936-973) . His first great work was to end forever the barbarian 
inroads. The nomad Hungarians (p. 55) once more broke across 
the eastern border in enormous numbers. Otto crushed them 
with horrible slaughter at the Battle of Lechfield. The Hunga- 
rians never again attacked Christendom. Soon, indeed, they 
themselves adopted Christianity and settled down in modern 
Hungary as one of the family of European nations. 

Otto followed up his success. Year by year, he forced further 
back the Slavs from his eastern borders, and established 
"marks" along that whole frontier. On the extreme south- 
east was the Eastmark (against the Hungarians), to grow into 
modern Austria, while the Mark of Brandenburg on the north- 
east (against the Slavs) was to grow into modern Prussia. 
Now, too,, began a new colonizing movement which soon extended 
Germany from the Elbe to the Oder and carried swarms of German 
settlers among even the savage Prussians and the Slavs of the 
heathen Baltic coast. 

It should have been the work of 'the German kings to 
foster this defensive colonization along their barbarous eastern 
borders, and to fuse the Germans theriiselves into a true nation. 
But Otto and his successors were drawn from this work, so well 
begun, by greedy dreams of wider empire. 

For half a century the Empire in the West had lapsed. Otto 
was tempted to restore it — as a mask for seizing upon Italy. 
That unhappy land had no shadow of union. Saracens from 
Africa contested the south with the Greek Empire and the 
Lombards, and the north was devastated by ferocious wars be- 
tween petty states. Otto invaded Italy, and in 962 had himself 
consecrated by the pope at Rome as " Emperor of the Romans." 

Popes and Emperors soon quarreled. The restored Empire 
was " the Holy Roman Empire of the German people." It did not 
include all "Western Europe," like Charlemagne's Empire in 
its day. France was outside, as were the new Christian king- 
doms in England, Scandinavia, Poland, and Hungary. As a 
physical power it rested wholly on "German" military prowess. 



Germany 
in the 
feudal age 



Expansion 
to the east 



False ambi- 
tion of the 
German 
kings 



Otto and 
the Holy 
Roman 
Empire, 962 



Popes and 
Emperors 



88 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Ruin to both 
Germany 
and Italy 



The period 
of ■• fist- 
law ' in 
Germany 
1254-1273 



And it was "Holy." It claimed to share the headship of 
Christendom with the papacy, hut the relation between Em- 
perors and Popes was not defined. Soon they quarreled ; and 
then followed three centuries of fatal struggle. 

During these three centuries the history of Germany was hound 
up with that of Italy. This connection brought to Germany 
somewhat of the culture and art of the ancient world ; but in 
government and industry it spelled ruin. Otto was merely the 
first of a long line of German kings who led splendid German 
armies across the Alps, to melt away in fever beneath the Italian 
sun. German strength was frittered away in foreign squabbles, 
and the chance to make a German nation was lost for nine hun- 
dred years. 

No better were the results to Italy. A German king, however 
much a "Roman" Emperor, could enter Italy only with a Ger- 
man army at his back. The southern land was a conquered 
province, ruled by uncouth northern barbarians. True, at 
last the Popes won, and expelled the Germans ; but only by 
calling in Frenchman and Spaniard, and making Italy for 
centuries more the battle ground and battle prize of Europe. 

In 1254 the last German ruler was driven from Italy. The 
Empire ceased to he either "Holy" or "Roman." Thereafter it 
was wholly German. And even the German kingdom seemed 
extinct. For twenty years (1254-1273) there was no Emperor, 
and no king, in Germany. This was the period of "Fist- 
law." Germany dissolved into more than 300 petty states — 
"free cities," duchies, marks, counties. 



Moham- 
medan 
culture 
during 
Europe's 
• Dark 
Ages " 



MI. THE CRUSADES, 1100-1300 

For the last two centuries of the feudal age, all Western 
Europe was deeply moved by one common impulse. To under- 
stand this, we must look at conditions outside Europe. 

The Mohammedans (pp. 38-42) still ruled from the Pyre- 
nees to the Ganges. They had utilized the old culture of 
Persia and of Greece. Their governments were as good as the 
Oriental world had ever known. Their roads and canals en- 



THE EMPIRE 

THE ELEVENTH CENTURY 

(lime of Henry III) 

SCALE OF MILES 



10 u 




I^IOHAMMEDAN CULTURE 



89 



couraged commerce and bound together distant regions. Their 
magnificent cities were built with a peculiar and beautiful 
architecture, characterized by the horseshoe arch, the dome, 
the turret, the graceful minaret, and a rich ornament of 
"arabesque." Their manufactures were the finest in the 
world, both for beautiful 
design and for delicate 
workmanship. Their glass 
and pottery and metal 
work, their dyestuffs, their 
paper, their cloth manu- 
factures, their preparations 
of leather, all represented 
industries almost or wholly 
unknown to the West. 
We still speak of "Toledo" 
blades, and "Morocco" 
leather, while "muslins" 
and " damasks " recall 
their superior processes at 
Mosul and Damascus. 
Europe was soon to owe to 
them all these products, 
wi t h many other things long- 
forgotten or new, — ^ spices, 
oranges, lemons, rice, sugar 
cane, dates, asparagus, ses- 
ame, buckwheat, apricots, 
watermelons, oils, perfumes, 
calicoes, satins, the cross- 
bow, the windmill. 

In intellectual lines Arab superiority was no less marked. 
While Europe had only a few monastic schools to light its 
"Dark Ages," the Arabs had great universities, with libraries 
containing hundreds of thousands of manuscripts. In Persia 
and in Spain they had created a noble literature, both prose 




A Window in the Mosque at Cordova. 
See also p. 40 for Mohammedan 
architecture. 



90 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



The sur- 
viving 
Greek 
Empire 
in the East 



and poetry. Philosophy, theology, law, rhetoric, were subjects 
of special study. The old Chaldean astrology (a sort of fortune- 
telling by the stars) was becoming true astronomy in the hands 
of the Arabians of Spain. The heavens still keep proof of their 
studies in its thick sprinkling of Arabic names, like Aldebaran, 
while common terms in our texts on astronomy {azimuth, zenith, 
nadir) "bear like testimony. F'rom India the Arabs brought 
the ""Arabic" notation, while Europe was still struggling witL 
clumsy Roman numerals. Algebra and alchemy (chemistr}) are 
Arabic in origin as in name, and spherical trigonometry was 
their creation. And while Europe still treated disease from 

the viewpoint of an Indian 
^\ ^^^^ "Medicine Man," _ the 

Saracens had established, 
on Greek foundations, a 
real science of medicine. 





A Byzant (Bezant). — A gold coin issued 
by the emperors at Constantinople in 
the Middle Ages. This coin had a wnde 
circulation, especially from the eighth to 
the thirteenth centuries, in the countries 
of western Europe, when, -ndth the ex- 
ception of Spain, these lands had no 
gold currency of their own. 



Midway in character, 
as in geography, between 
Latin Europe and Moham- 
medan Asia, lay the Greek 
Empire, living on for centu- 
ries a quiet, orderly life. In 
material prosperity it was unexcelled anywhere in the world, and 
in intellectual activity it was surpassed only by the Saracens. 

It was a civilized state, standing on the defensive against 
barbarian attack, and waging its wars mainly by Norse 
mercenaries. The Emperors were often devoted scholars and 
able authors, as well as great rulers. Constantinople in mag- 
nificence and extent and comfort was unapproached by the rude 
towns of France and Germany ; and its wealth, splendor, and 
comforts, — its paved and lighted streets, its schools and 
theaters, its orderly police system, its hospitals and parks, — 
were all amazing to the few visitors from the West. Such little 
trade as Western Europe possessed was in Greek hands, and 
the Byzant, the coin of Constantinople, was its money standard. 



THE SURVIVING GREEK EMPIRE 



91 









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92 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



In the eleventh century, the civiHzation of the Saracens 
received a fatal blow, and the existence of the Greek Empire 
was endangered. Political supremacy in the Mohammedan 
world fell to the Turks, a new Tartar people from beyond the 
Jaxartes. The Turks were to play somewhat the same part in 
the Saracenic world that the Teutons had played in the old 
Roman world, — with this tremendous difference, that even 
to the present day they have not assimilated civilization. The 
Arab culture survived long enough to 
be transplanted into Europe, but in its 
own home it was doomed to swift decay. 
The Turks were at least mighty 
soldiers, and they began a new era of Mo- 
hammedan conquest. Almost at once 
the greater part of the Greek Empire fell 
into their hands. They overran Asia 
Minor, almost to the gates of Con- 
stantinople. In terror, the Greek Em- 
peror turned to Western Christendom 
for aid ; and this appeal was the signal 
for two centuries of war, "Cross" 
against "Crescent." 

The Greek call for aid against the 
infidel would have produced little effect, however, if Western 
Europe had not had deep grievances of its own against the Turk. 
Pilgrimages to holy shrines were a leading feature of medieval 
life. Good men made them to satisfy religious enthusiasm ; 
evil men, to secure forgiveness for crime ; sick men, to heal 
bodily ills. A pilgrimage was an act of worship. Chief of 
all pilgrimages, of course, was that to the land where Christ 
had lived and to the tomb where His body had been laid. The 
Saracens had permitted these pilgrimages; but the Turks, 
when they captured Jerusalem from the Arabs, began at once 
to persecute all Christians there. Thus began those movements 
of armed pilgrims which we call the Crusades. Each crusader 
marched in part to save Eastern Christians, partly to avenge 




Crusader taking the vow. 



THE CRUSADES 1096-1300 



93 



pilgrims from the West ; and partly to make his own pilgrimage 
to the holiest of shrines. Mingled with these motives, too, 
was the spirit of adventure and the greed for gain in land 
or gold. 

From 1096 to almost 1300 there was constant fighting in the 
East between Christian and Mohammedan. Europe, which in 
the ninth century had been helpless against plundering heathen 
bands, had now grown 
strong enough to pour 
into Asia for two hundred 
years a ceaseless stream 
of mailed knights, with 
countless followers. 

For almost the first half 
of that period the Chris- 
tians did hold all or most 
of the Holy Land, broken 
into various "Latin" prin- 
cipalities, and defended 
against the reviving Mo- 
hammedan power by 
"Orders" of fighting 
monks — the Templars, 
the Knights of St. John, 
and the Teutonic Order. 
At the end, the Mohamme- 
dans had expelled Europe 
wholly from Asia. 

This was mainly because 
Europe had outgrown the crusading movement. The Crusades 
themselves had created a new Europe. Trade had grown, and 
society was no longer so exclusively made up of fighters. The 
indirect results of the Crusades were vastly more important 
than the recovery of Palestine would have been. New energies Intellectual 
were awakened ; new worlds of thought opened. The intel- 
lectual horizon widened. The crusaders brought back new gains 



E-.. ." 


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Effigies of Knights Templar, from 
funeral slabs in the Temple Church, 
London. The crossing of the legs in a 
funeral sculpture indicated a crusader. 



Importance 
of the 
Crusades 



results 



94 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



Growth of 
commerce 



Feudalism 
undermined 



in science, art, architecture, medical skill; and Europe had learned 
that there was more still to learn. 

Many oriental products (p. 89) became almost necessaries 
of life. Some of them were soon grown or manufactured in 
Europe. Others, like spices, could not be produced there ; and, 
in consequence, commerce with distant parts of Asia grew 
enormously. In the absence of fresh meat in winter and of our 
modern root-foods (p. 69) , spices became of immense importance 
for the table. For a time, Venice and Genoa, assisted by their 
favorable positions, monopolized much of the new carrying 
trade ; but all the ports of Western Europe were more or less 
affected. This commercial activity called for quicker meth- 
ods of reckoning, and so Europe adopted the Arabic numer- 
als. Money replaced barter. Bankers appeared, alongside the 
old Jew money-lenders ; and coinage increased swiftly. 

All this undermined both the economic and the military 
basis of feudalism. Money made it unnecessary for the tenant 
to pay rent in service, and enabled the kings to collect "taxes," 
so as to maintain standing armies. Moreover the Crusades 
swept away the old feudal nobility directly. Hundreds of 
thousands of barons and knights squandered their possessions 
in preparing for the expedition, and then left their bones in 
Palestine. The ground was cleared for the rising city democ- 
racies and the new monarchies. 

And these two new forces at first were allies. The "third 
estate" wanted order, and the kings could help secure it. 
The kings wanted money, and the third estate could supply 
it. Kings and towns joined hands to reduce feudalism to a 
form. True, a new nobility grew up — but it had only the 
honors of the old, without its power. 



The towns 
and the 
feudal lords 



VIII. RISE OF THE TOWNS, 1100-1300 

From 500 to 1100 a.d. the three figures in European life had 
been the tonsured priest, the mailed horseman, and the field 
laborer, stunted and bent. In the twelfth century, alongside 
priest, noble, and peasant there stood, out a fourth figure — the 



RISE OF TOWNS 1100-1300 



95 



sturdy, resolute, self-confident burgher. The age of the Crusades 
was also the age of the rise of towns. 

FeudaHsm and the towns were foes by nature. Feudalism 
had grown out of war, and lived to fight. The new towns could 
fight stubbornly, when forced to fight; but they grew out of 
trade and lived for industry, and they shut out the robber- 
knights by walls and guards. 

In Italy and southern France, some old Roman towns had Origin of 
lived along, with shrunken population, subject to neighboring *^® towns 




Siege of a Medieval Town : the summons to surrender, 
teenth-century copper engraving. 



From a six- 



lords. Under the new commercial conditions after 1200, these 
districts became dotted once more with self-governing cities, 
with municipal institutions molded, in part at least, upon those 
brought down from Roman times. Elsewhere the towns were 
mainly new growths — from peasant villages. Most were 
small. Very few had more than four or five thousand people. 
' At first each inhabitant of a growing town remained directly 
dependent upon the town's feudal lord. The fu'st advance toward 
freedom was to change this individual dependence into collective revolt 



Town 
charters 
won in two 
centuries of 



96 



BRIEF SURVEY OP EARLIER PROGRESS 



dependence. The town demanded the right to have its elected 
officers bargain with the lord as to services and dues, to he paid 
by the whole town, not by individual citizens ; and after " two 
centuries of revolt" (1100-1300), by stubborn heroism and by 
wise use of their wealth, they had won charters guaranteeing 
this and greater privileges. 




The IMhi.iiA al Town Hall of Oudenarde, Belgium. 



Town life showed new wants, new comforts, new occupations. 
Thatched hovels, with dirt floors, gave way to comfortable, 
and even stately, burghers' homes. Universal misery and 
squalor among the industrial classes were replaced, for a large 
part of the population, by happy comfort. There follow^ed a 
lavish expenditure for town halls and cathedrals and for ci\'ic 
feasts and shows. 



THE MEDIEVAL TOWN 97 

Still, the medieval European city fell far l:)ehind the ancient 
Roman city or the contemporary Arabian city. Tliere were 
no street lights at night, no city water supply, no sewerage, no 
street-cleaning, no pa^•ing. The necessity of inclosing the town 
within lofty stone walls crowded it into small space, so that 
streets were always narrow and dark. Dead animals rotted in 
these streets ; loose swine or pigsties obstructed them ; and on 
one occasion in the fifteenth century a German Emperor, warmly 
welcomed in a loyal city, was almost swallowed up, horse and 
rider, in the bottomless filth. Within doors, too, the material 
prosperity was not for all. Says Dr. Jessopp, "The sediment 
of the town population was a dense slough of stagnant misery, 
squalor, famine, loathsome disease, and dull despair." 

There was no adequate police system, and street fights were 
constant. At night, no well-to-do citizen stirred abroad without 
his armor and his guard of stout apprentice lads ; and he had to 
fortify and guard his house at all times. The citizen, however 
safe from feudal tyranny, lived in bondage to countless necessary 
but annoying town regulations. When "curfew" rang, he must 
"cover his fire" and put out lights — a precaution against con- 
flagration particularly necessary because of the crowded narrow 
streets, the flimsy houses, and the absence of fire companies 
and of adequate water. His clothing, and his wife's, must be 
no richer than that prescribed for their particular station. He 
must serve his turn as "watch" in belfry tower, on the walls, 
or in the streets at night. And in his daily labor he must work 
and buy and sell only according to the minute regulations of 
his gild. 

The gild was an institution of old Roman times, modified 
by medieval conditions. All the skilled laborers of one trade, 
in one place, made up a gild, — bakers' gild, goldsmiths' gild, 
and so on. The gild was a social organization, and a 
mutual insurance society ; and it also minutely regulated 
the work of its members so as to give each member an 
equal chance and to mainiain a high standard of work. 



98 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 




Old Stheet in Rouen, present condition. The Cathedral is visible at the 
opening of the street into the square. Probably the appearance of the 
street has changed little since the fourteenth century. 



55 



1 

DOMINIONS OF THE HANSA AND 

OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER AT 

THEIR GREATEST EITENT. 

(About 1400.) 

Bansa towns are shown thjis:- Groningen 
Foreign Factories of the League thus:- Bruges 
Cities in which the League, or some of its 
members, possessed trading privileges 
thus:- Tarmouth 

lERKITORY OF THE TEUTONIC ORDEB. 



1309. 

Added up to UiO. 



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'wderiryii o Osnabriok Mmden/ o Brunswick q ( 

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Merseburg 



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THE MEDIEVAL TOWN 



99 



The townsmen, from rich merchant down through skilled 
artisan, were a "third estate" in government, alongside clergy 
and nobles. They were not as yet "the people." They were 
only one more "class" risen from the unreckoned mass; and 
they looked down upon unskilled workmen and farm peasants 
with contempt as bigoted and cruel 
as that felt for the burghers by the 
classes above them. 

For a time it seemed that Europe 
might be dominated by city leagues, 
like ancient Greece. More than 
once, leagues of cities, like the 
Hanseatic League of north Ger- 
many, fought with the mightiest 
kings, and won. But in Italy by 
1350 nearly every city had fallen 
under the rule of tyrants ; in 
France, they were brought com- 
pletely under the growing despotic 
authority of the king ; in Germany, 
the many "free cities" became 
only one element in the general 
political chaos (p. 88) ; and in 
England they never possessed that 
extreme independence of the cen- 
tral government which for a time 
they secured in other lands. The more advanced countries of 
Europe moved on toward a national life, in which city life was 
soon absorbed. 



A " third 
estate " 



^^ 




^^^m 


^^^^ 


^mm 




^^■d 


1 


4 

V 


^ 


yM.I> 



Leagues 
of cities 



Torture by Water, a method 
used in medieval towns, on the 
continent, in their bitter class 
strife. This particular form 
of torture to compel confession 
survived to recent times in the 
Spanish Philippines, and was 
adopted by American soldiers 
there in the barbarous warfare 
with the natives. 



IX. LEARNING AND ART IN THE FEUDAL AGE 

The "Dark Ages" (500 to 1100) saw a gleam of promise Few schools 
in Charlemagne's day, and some remarkable English and Irish ^ * ^ . 
schools flourished just before Charlemagne, and again in the 
day of Alfred. But these were mere points of light in a vast 
gloom. As a whole, for six hundred years the only schools were 



100 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



those connected with monasteries and cathedrals ; and these 
were unspeakably poor — and aimed only to fit for the duties 
of the clergy. 

About 1100, Europe began to stir from this intellectual torpor. 
Some of the new towns set up trades schools, with instruction 
in the language of the people, instead of in Latin, to fit educa- 
tion to the needs of everyday life. In leading cities, in France, 
Italy, and England, the medieval university appeared, with 
extended courses in "arts" and with other specialties for 
advanced study, like theology at Paris, medicine at Naples, 
Roman law at Bologna. By 1400, fifty universities dotted 
Europe, some of them M'ith many thousand students. A fifth 
figure came into European life: alongside peasant, knight, priest, 
townsman, there moved now in cap and gown the lay student or 
learned "doctor," the forerunner of the modern "professional 



But the universities did not make good their first promise. 
The University of Paris, the first medieval university, had grown 
up about a great teacher, Abelard. Abelard was a fearless 
seeker after truth. Alone among the scholars of his age, 
he dared to call "reason" the test of truth, even in the 
matter of church doctrines. But the church condemned this 
heresy, a.nd forced the rising universities to forswear "reason" 
for "authority" This stifled all inquiry. Some garbled 
fragments of Greek science had been recovered, through 
Arabian translations from the Greek Aristotle, and soon came 
to be looked upon with superstitious reverence. For two 
centuries, "Thus saith Aristotle" was as final in science as 
"Thus saith the church" in religion. When the intellectual 
rebirth of Europe finally came, after those two centuries, it came 
from outside university walls. 

The method of reasoning used in the universities is called 
scholasticism. It was like the reasoning we use in geometry, 
— deducing a truth from given premises or axioms. This 
method ignores observation and experiment and investigation, 
and has no value, by itself, except in mathematics. It has 



THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES 



101 



never discovered a truth in nature or in man. The men of the 
luiiversities {Schoolmen) did not use it in mathematics. They 
tried to use it by turning in upon their own minds, and their 
arguments were mainly quibbles upon verbal distinctions. Much 
time they spent in playing with such questions as, How many 
spirits can dance at one time upon the point of a needle? 

The last of the famous Schoolmen was Duns the Scot, who 
died in 1308. In that day there was no higher praise for a 




Interior of Hall of Merchant Princes at Dantzig. Originally a Hall 
of the Teutonic Knights (about 1300). — From Liibke. 



young scholar than to call him "a Duns." Before many years, 
when a new scientific method had come in (p. 178), the term 
came to be our "dunce." 

A very little "science" crept into Europe by 1200 from the Medieval 
Arabs, mainly in astronomy and chemistry. But the astronomy science 
was mostly astrology (p. 90). And chemistry (alchemy) was 
little more than a search for the " philosopher's stone, " which 
should change common metals into gold, or for the "elixir of 
life," a drink to make a man immortal. Both astrologers and 



102 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 




Salisbury Cathedral, from the northwest ; one of the finest examples of 
English Gothic; built 1200-1250. The spire rises 404 feet from the 
ground. 



ROGER BACON, SEEKER FOR TRUTH 



103 



alchemists mingled their studies with magic incantations and 
were generally believed to have sold their souls to the Devil 
in return for forbidden knowledge. 

No doubt there were many men, whose names we have never 
heard, who were trying through those weary centuries really 
to study into the secrets of nature in a scientific way, by experi- science 
ment. The greatest man of this kind before 1300 was Roger 
Bacon, an English Franciscan. While the useless Duns Scotus 



A fore- 
runner 
of true 




Salisbury Cloisters, from outside the court, showing only the roof of the 
Cathedral above them. 



was admired and courted by all the world, Roger Bacon was 
living in loneliness and poverty, noticed only to be persecuted 
or reviled. He spent his life in trying to point out the lacks 
of the Schoolmen's method and to teach true scientific principles. 
Fourteen years he spent in dungeons, for his opinions. When 
at liberty, he worked devotedly, but under heavy handicaps. 
More than once he sought all over Europe for a copy of some 
book he needed — when a modern scholar in like case would 



104 



BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



need only to send a note to the nearest bookseller. He wrote 
upon the possibility of reaching Asia by sailing west into the 
Atlantic. He learned much about explosives, and is said 
to have invented gunpowder. It is believed, too, that he 
used lenses as a telescope. Apparently he foresaw the possibil- 
ity of using steam as a motive power. Certainly he prophesied 
that in time wagons and ships would m6ve "with incredible 
speed" without horses or sails, and also that man would learn to 
sail the air. His "Great Work" was a cyclopedia of the knowl- 
edge of his time in geography, mathematics, music, and physics. 
But Roger Bacon lived a century too soon for his own good, 
and found no successful disciples. 

Latin, a mongrel Latin, too, was the sole language of the 
university and of learning ; and until 1200, except for the songs 
of wandering minstrels, it was practically the only language of 
any kind of literature. About that time, however, in various 
lands popular poetry of a high order began to appear in the language 
of everyday speech : the Song of the Cid in Spanish ; the love 
songs of the Troubadours in French and of the Minnesingers 
in German ; the Divine Comedy of Dante in Italian, and, toward 
1400, the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer in New English, with 
Wyclif's translation of the Bible into the same tongue. 

Classical art was lost, through the Dark Ages, as completely 
as classical learning. Medieval painting existed only in rude 
altar pieces, representing stiff saints and Madonnas, where 
even the flowing draperies could not hide the artist's ignorance 
of how to draw the human body. On a minute scale, to be 
sure, there was some better work. Monks "illuminated" 
missals with tiny brushes in brilliant colors, and sometimes 
with beauty and delicacy. 

Architecture, too, was rude until after 1100. But, in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, the heavy Romanesque style gave way 
to a new French style called the Gothic, and the world gained one 
of its wonders in the Gothic cathedral — "a religious aspiration 
in stone," 



SIXTH PERIOD 

THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES, 1300-1520 
I. ENGLAND AND FRANCE 

We left the story of England with the great Edward who had The 
the wisdom to adopt and perfect the Parliament of the rebel y^^^f®^ 
Simon. In 1327 Parliament deposed the weak second Edward. (1338-1453) 
Then the third Edward began the Hundred Years' War with 




English Lady on Horseback. — 
From a fourteenth-century manu- 
script in the British Museum. 



^ .-/ -. ^^ 




M^^ ym 




j;;^v^|^iv*l\ /<vpnr 




fwV r^Jfi.' A /iu ^ 1 




1 J^^f'K^'^JTO'^^^LBv / 




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m III 


1 


mldiij 


1 



12 3 

French Dress in the Fourteenth 
Century: 1. Middle class; 2. 
Lower class ; 3. Noble lady. 



France (1338-1453). On the surface, this war was a struggle 
between kings for prestige and territory :■ but at bottom 
it ivas a commercial struggle. Every country, in that day, 
shackled foreign merchants with absurd restrictions and ruinous 
tolls. England wanted to sell her wool freely in Flemish towns 
and to buy Bordeaux wines freely in the south of France ; and 

105 



106 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



the easiest way to get access to these markets seemed to be to 
conquer France. 

The war was waged on French soil. The EngHsh won bril- 
liant victories, overran France repeatedly* ravaging crops, 
burning peasant villages, turning the country into a black- 
ened desert in the usual fashion of warfare in those chivalrous 

days, and bringing home 
much plunder — robes, 
furs, feather beds, kitchen 
utensils, some rich plate, 
and some coin from the 
ransom of "noble" pris- 
oners. The whole century 
of horrible and meaning- 
less slaughter had just one 
gleam of promise for the 
future world. This was 
given by the Battle of 
Crecy. An English army 
was trapped apparently 
by five times their num- 
ber. But the English 
yeomen — men of the six- 
foot bow and yard-long 
shafts feathered from 
gray-goose wings - — coolly 
faced the ponderous mass 
of French knights, re- 
pulsed charge after charge 
of that gallantest chivalry of Europe, and won back for the 
world the long-lost equality of the footman with the feudal 
horseman in war (1346). 

For a time, toward 1400, the war languished because pestilence 
was slaying men faster than steel could. The Black Death, most 
famous of famous plagues, had been devastating the conti- 
nent for years, moving west from Asia. At least a third of 




A BoMB.Ano. — From a sixteenth-century 
German woodcut. An old chronicler tells 
us that at Crecy the English had some 
small "bombards," which, with fire and 
noise like God's thunder, threw little iron 
balls to frighten the horses. These first 
cannon were, made by fastening bars of 
iron together with hoops ; and the pow- 
der was very weak. A century later 
they began to be used to batter down 
castles and city walls. It was longer still 
before firearms replaced the bow for 
infantry. 



WYCLIF AND THE LOLLARDS 



107 



decay of 
serfdom in 
England 



the population of Europe was carried off by it. Then, in the 
year after Crecy, the returned victors brought it to England, 
where, almost at a blow, it swept away half the nation. 

This loss fell most heavily of course upon the working classes, And the 
but it helped those left alive to rise out of serfdom, — a move- 
ment already well under way there. The lack of labor doubled 
wages, too, and so brought in 
a higher standard of living. 

True, Parliament tried, in 
the interest of the landlords, 
to keep down the laborers by 
foolish and tyrannical laws, — 
forbidding them to leave the 
parish where they lived or to 
take more wages than had been 
customary in the past, and 
ordering them under cruel 
penalties to serve any one 
who offered them such wages. 
There were many individual 
cases, too, of bitter tyranny, 
where some lord, by legal 

trickery or by outright violence, forced half-freed villeins back 
into serfdom. Thus among the peasants there was long smolder- 
ing a fierce and just discontent. 

Another set of causes fanned this discontent into flame. The 
huge wealth of the church and the worldliness of the greater clergy 
were becoming a commorf scandal. Even the gentle Chaucer 
(p. 104), court poet though he was, wrote in keen raillery of these 
faults. More serious and less happy men could not dismiss 
them with a jest. The priest, John Wyclif , a famous lecturer Wyclif and 
at the University of Oxford, preached vigorously against such 
abuses, and finally attacked even some central teachings of 
the church. He denied the doctrine of transubstantiation,^ 

1 That at the Mass the bread and wine were changed miraculously into 
the very flesh and blood of Christ. 




John Wyclif 



the 
Lollards 



108 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

and insisted that even ignorant men might know the will of 
God, through the Bible, without priestly intervention. Accord- 
ingly, with his companions, he made the first complete transla- 
tion of the Bible into English ; and his disciples wrote out many 
copies (printing was still a century in the future) and distrib- 
uted them throughout the land. 

These disciples called themselves "poor preachers." Their 
enemies called them "Lollards" (babblers). Some of them 
exaggerated their master's teachings against wealth, and called 
for the abolition of all rank and property. John Ball, one of these 
"mad preachers," attacked the privileges of the gentry in rude 
rhymes that rang through England from shore to shore, — 

"When Adam delved and Eve span. 
Who was then the gentleman?" 

"This priest," says Froissart, a contemporary chronicler, "used often- 
times to go and preach when the people in the villages were coming out 
from mass ; and he would make them gather about him, and would say 
thus : ' Good people, things go not well in England, nor will, till every- 
thing be in common and there no more be villeins and gentlemen. By 
what right are they whom we call lords greater folk than we ? We be all 
come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve, . . . but they 
are clothed in velvet and are warm in their furs, while we shiver in rags ; 
they have wine, and spices, and fair bread ; and we, oat cake and straw, 
and water to drink ; they dwell in fine houses, and we have the pain and 
travail, the rain and the wind in the fields. From our labor they keep 
their state. Yet we are their bondmen ; and unless we serve them 
readily, we are beaten.' And so the people would murmur one with 
the other in the fields, and in the ways as they met together, affirming 

that John Ball spoke truth." 

• 

In 1377 Edward's grandson, Richard II, came to the throne 
as a mere boy ; and, while the government was in confusion, 
and England in this seething discontent, Parliament passed a 
heavy poll tax, bearing unfairly upon the poor. This match 
set the realm ablaze — in the "Peasant Rising of 1381." With 
amazing suddenness, from all sides, the peasants, rudely armed, 
marched upon London ; and in a few days the king and kingdom 
were in their hands. 



THE REVOLT OF THE PEASANTS 



109 



The special demand of the peasantry was that all labor-rents 
should be changed into fixed money rents. They sacked some 
castles and manor houses, destroying the "manor rolls," the 
written evidence of services due on the estate ; and they put to 
death a few nobles and their lawyer tools. Women and children 
were nowhere injured, and there was no attempt at general 
pillage and massacre, such as usually go with servile insurrec- 
tions in other lands. The revolt loas marked by the moderation 
of men who had a reasonable program of reform. 




An English Carriage of the Fourteenth Century. — After Jusserand's 
English Wayfaring Life; from a fourteenth-century psalter. This 
carriage is represented as drawn by five horses tandem, driven by two 
postilions. Such a carriage was a princely luxury, equaling in value a 
herd of from four hundred to sixteen hundred oxen. 

Unhappily the peasants lacked organization. Their chief 
leader, Wat the Tyler, was murdered treacherously, in a con- 
ference "under a flag of truce," as we would say. "Kill!" 
shouted Wat's followers; "they have murdered our captain!" 
But the young Richard rode forward fearlessly to their front. 
" What need ye, my masters ! " he called ; " I am your king and 
captain." "We will that you free us forever," shouted the 
peasant army, " us and our lands ; and that we be never more 
named serfs." "I grant it," replied the boy; and by such 
pledges and by promise of free pardon he persuaded them to go 
home. For days a force of thirty clerks was kept busy writing 
out brief charters containing the king's promises. 

But when the peasants had scattered to their villages, bear- 



Wat 
the Tyler 



110 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

The upper- ing to each one a copy of the king's treacherous charter, the 
class property classes ralhed and took a bloody vengeance. Parlia- 

and revenge ment declared, indeed, that Richard's promise was void, because 
he could not give away the gentry's property — the services 
due them — without their consent. Richard caught gladly at 
this excuse. Quite willing to dishonor his word to mere villeins, 
he marched triumphantly through England at the head of forty 




A Fourteenth-Century Bridge in Rural England, near Danby. — 
From Jusserand's English Wayfaring Life. 



thousand men, stamping out all hope of another rising by ruth- 
less execution of old leaders. Seven thousand men were put 
to death in cold blood. The men of Essex met him with copies 
of his charters, declaring that they were free Englishmen. 
"Villeins you were," answered Richard, "and villeins you are. 
In bondage you shall abide ; and not your old bondage, but a 
worse." 

History has preserved a splendid story of one of the martyred 
heroes. Early in the rising, the peasants of St. Albans (in 



ENGLISH SERFDOM GONE 111 

Essex) had wrung charters from the monastery which had 
previously owned their town — in so legal a way that now even 
the royal courts could not ignore them. The leader of the St. 
Albans' villagers, Grindccohhe, was now condemned to death, 
however, for his part in the rising, and was then offered his life 
if he would persuade his townsmen to give up the charters. 
Grindecobbe turned to his fellows only to bid them take no 
thought for him but to hold firm their rights. " I shall die for 
the freedom we have won, counting myself happy to end my life 
by such a martyrdom. Do then as if I had been killed in battle 
yesterday." 

Such steadfastness was not in vain. Soon the movement The peasant 
toward the emancipation of villeins began again with fresh force ; *^*"^^ ^"^ 
and, by 1/^50, villeinage had passed away from England forever. 

The growth of Parliament during the Hundred Years' War Growth of 
was almost as important as the rise of the peasants out of bond- ^I^^^ 
age. Constant war made it necessary for Edward III and power 
his successors to ask for many grants of money. Parliament 
supplied the king generously ; but it took advantage of his needs 
to secure new powers. 

(1) It established the principle that "redress of grievances" 
must precede a " grant of supply " and at last transformed its 
" petitions " for such redress into " bills." (2) In the closing 
years of Edward III the Good Parliament (1376) "impeached" 
and removed his ministers, using the forms that have been com- 
mon in impeachments ever since in English-speaking countries. 
And (3) ivhen Richard II tried to overawe Parliament with his 
soldiery, England rose against him, and the Parliament of 1399 
deposed him, electing a cousin (Henry of Lancaster) in his place. 
(4) In the first quarter of the fifteenth century, under the Lan- 
castrian Henrys (IV, V, VI) , the House of Commons made good 
its claims that all money bills must originate with it, and (5) 
secured the right to judge of the election of its own members. 
(6) Parliament repeatedly compelled the king to dismiss his 
ministers and appoint new ones satisfactory to it, and (7) sev- 



112 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



eral times fixed the succession to the throne. (8) Freedom of 
speech in Parliament and freedom from arrest, except by the 
order of Parliament itself, became recognized privileges of all 
members. 

Thus under the Lancastrians there was established in the 
breasts of the English middle classes a proud consciousness of 
English liberty as a precious inheritance. With right they 
believed it superior to that possessed by any other people of the 



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The Good Parliament of 1399, which deposed Richard II. — From a 
contemporary manuscript. Some of the faces are probably portraits. 

time. Wrote Sir John Fortescue, Chief Justice under Henry VI, 
in his In Praise of the Laws of England, for the instruction of 
Henry's son : — 

"A king of England at his pleasure cannot make any alteration in the 
laws of the land without the consent of his subjects, nor burden them 
against their wills with strange impositions. . . . Rejoice, therefore, 
my good Prince, that such is the law of the kingdom you are to inherit, 
because it will afford both to you and to your subjects the greatest 
security and satisfaction. . . . [The king] is appointed to protect his 
subjects in their hves, properties, and laws. For this end he has the 
delegation of power from the people, and he has no just claims to any other 
power." 



THE TUDOR MONARCHS 



113 



Then came the ruinous Wars of the Roses in England. This 
civil war was not, despite Shakspere's pictures of it, merely 
a struggle for power between rival lords : in large measure, it 
was the final battle between the old feudal spirit, strong in the 
north of England, and the towns, strong in the south. The 
towns won. The remnants of the old nobility were swept away 
in battle or by the heads- 
man's ax. But the middle 
classes were not yet ready 
to grasp the government, 
and the fruits of victory fell 
for a time to the neiv Tudor 
monarchs, Henry VII and 
Henry VIII. These rulers 
were more absolute than 
any preceding English 
kings. England entered 
the modern period under 
a "New Monarchy." 

Still these Tudorsiverenot 
" divine-right" monarchs ; 
and they were shrewd 
enough to cloak their 
power under the old con- 
stitutional forms — and so 
did not challenge popular 
opposition. True they 
called Parliament rarely 
— and only to use it as a tool. But the occasional meetings, 
and the way in which the kings seemed to rule through it, 
saved the forms of constitutional government. At a later 
time, we shall see, life was again breathed into those forms. 
Then it became plain that, in crushing the feudal forces, 
the New Monarchy had paved the way for a parliamentary 
government more complete than men had dreamed of in earlier 
times. 



The Wars 
of the 
Roses, 
1454-1471 




A Medieval Battle. — From a sixteenth- 
century woodcut. 



The /orms 
of free 
government 
saved 



114 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

France came out of the Hundred Years' War, after unspeakable 
suffering among the poor and after vast destruction of property, 
with territory consolidated, with a new patriotism binding her 
people into one (a patriotism that had blossomed in Joan of 




Joan of Arc at the Relief of Orleans. 

. painting. 



From a modern imaginative 



Arc, the peasant girl liberator of her country), and with her 
kings stronger than ever. Her industrious peasantry, not for 
the last time, amazed Europe by their rapid restoration of 
prosperity in a wasted land. Louis XI (1461-1483) kept a small 
but efficient standing army, with a train of artillery that could 
easily batter the castle of any feudal rebel about his ears. Louis 



THE PAPACY TOWARD 1500 115 

left France the richest, most orderly, and most united country on 
the continent. Under Francis I (1515-1547), France plainly 
had stepped into the first place in Europe — among single states 
— with only the widely scattered, conglomerate Hapsburg 
power to challenge her supremacy. 

II. THE PAPACY AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

The thirteenth-century struggle between popes and emperors Struggle 
(pp. 88, flf.) left the popes victors. But at once England {j'^et^g^gn'^ 
and France challenged that papal overlordship. Neither the gov- 
country questioned the pope's authority in religious matters ; ^^^ ^^^ 
but they did demand that he should not interfere with govern- pope 
nicnt. 

The conflict was hastened by the Hundred Years' War. 
The kings needed money, and were trying to introduce sys- 
tems of national taxation in place of the unsatisfactory feudal 
revenues. The clergy had been exempt from feudal serv- 
ices ; but they owned so much of the wealth of the two 
countries that the kings insisted upon their paying their share 
of the new taxes. Pope Boniface VIII (1296) issued a bull • 
forbidding any prince to impose taxes on the clergy without 
papal consent, and threatening excommunication against all 
clergy who paid. 

But when the English clergy, trusting in this papal decree, 
refused to pay taxes, Edward I outlawed them. To outlaw 
a man was to put him outside the protection of the law : he 
could not bring suit to recover property or damages, and offenses 
against him were not "crimes." It became plain at once 
that, in comparison with this practical "excommunication" by 
the state, the old clerical excommunication was stage thunder. 
The clergy submitted. 

France was the scene of a sharper contest. As it progressed. The conflict 
Pope Boniface set forth the old claims of papal supremacy over ^^ France 
princes. "Whoever resists this power," said one of his bulls, 
"resists the ordination of God . . . Indeed we declare . . . 
that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human 



116 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff." Philip treated 
these claims with contempt, and the Estates General (1302), 
even the clerical Estate, denied the pope any control over the 
state, and pledged their lives to defend the "ancient liberties 
of the French nation." Philip forbade the payment of any 
revenues from his realm to the pope, and arrested the papal 
legate. Boniface threatened to depose the king. A few days 
later, a company of French soldiers made Boniface prisoner ; 
and the chagrin of the old man at the insult probably hastened 
his death (1303). 

Philip then secured the election of a French pope, who removed 
the papal capital from Rome to Avignon, in southern France. 
Here the popes remained for seventy years (1309-1377), in 
"the Babylonian Captivity of the church." 

Of course the papacy lost public respect. It was no longer 
an impartial umpire. Politically it had sunk into a mere tool 
of the French kings, and the enemies of France could not be 
expected to show it reverence. In Italy, too, the Papal States 
themselves fell into anarchy, and there was danger that the 
popes might lose that principality. 

In 1377, to save the papal territory, Gregory XI visited 
Rome. This act brought on a greater disaster even than the 
exile itself. Gregory died while at Rome. The cardinals were 
obliged at once to choose a successor. They were Frenchmen 
(as all high church offices had been given to Frenchmen during 
the scandal of the Captivity) ; but even French cardinals did 
not dare disregard the savage demands of the people of Rome 
for an Italian pope, and so chose Urban VI. Urban estab- 
lished himself in the old papal seat at Rome; but, a few 
months later, the cardinals assembled again, declared that 
the choice of Urban was void because made under compulsion, 
and elected a French pope, Clement VII, who promptly re- 
turned to Avignon. 

Urban and Clement excommunicated each other, each devot- 
ing to the devil all the supporters of the other. Which pope 
should good Christians obey? The answer was determined 



LOLLARDS AND HUSSITES 117 

mainly by political considerations. France obeyed Clement; 
England and Germany obeyed Urban. Two such heads for 
Christendom were worse than no head at all. 

This sad condition of the papacy brought with it danger to The 
the church itself. The Wyclif movement in England (p. 107) ^oUard 
took place toward the close of the exile at Avignon. The 
church declared Wyclif a heretic ; but he was protected during 
his life by one of King Edward's sons. Soon after Wyclif's 
death, however, the Lancastrian monarchs began to persecute 
his followers. In 1401, for the first time, an Englishman was 
burned for heresy, and the Lollards finally disappeared. But 
meantime, the seeds of the heres}^ had been scattered in a 
distant part of Europe. Richard II of England married a prin- 
cess of Bohemia, and some of her attendants carried the teach- 
ings of Wyclif to the Bohemian University of Prague. About The Hussite 
1400, John Hus, a professor at Prague, became a leader in "^''^^y 
a radical "reform" much after Wyclif's example, and the 
movement spread rapidly over much of Bohemia. 

Great and good men everywhere, especially in the powerful 
universities, began now to call for a General Council as the only 
means to restore unity of church government and doctrine ; and 
finally one of the popes called the Council of Constance (1414). The Council 
Five thousand delegates were present, representing all Chris- stance"i4i4 
tendom. With recesses, the Coimcil sat for four years. It 
induced one pope to resign his office, and it deposed the other 
claimants. Then it restored unity by electing a new pope, 
Martin V, to rule from Rome. 

Next the Council turned its attention to restoring church 
doctrine. John Hus was present, under a "safe conduct" 
from the Emperor. His teachings were declared heresy ; but 
neither persuasion nor threats could move him to recant. " It 
is better for me to die," he said, "than to fall into the hands 
of the Lord by deserting the truth." Despite the Emperor's 
solemn pledge for his safety, Hus was burned at the stake, 
and his ashes were scattered in the Rhine (1415). Then Wyclif's 
doctrines, too, were condemned ; and, to make thorough work. 



118 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

his ashes were disinterred from their resting place and scattered 
on the river Swift. 

The Council was made up of earnest reformers, — good men 
for their age, — who believed that in this work they were serving 
God and saving the souls of future generations of men from 
eternal torment. But their vigorous measures did not wholly 
succeed. Hus became a national hero to Bohemia. That coun- 
try rose in arms against the church. A crusade was preached 
against the heretics, and years of cruel war followed ; but some 
survivals of Hussite teachings lasted on into the period of the 
Reformation a century later. 

The papacy nercr regained its earlier authority over kings. 
Nicholas V (1447) showed himself a learned scholar, eager to 
advance learning, as well as a pure and gentle man. Pius II 
(1455) strove to arouse a new crusade against the Turks, who 
had at last captured Constantinople ; but his complete failure 
proved (in his own words) that Europe "looked on pope and 
emperor alike as names in a story." Some of the succeeding 
popes, like the notorious Borgia (Alexander VI, 1492-1503), 
were busied mainly as Italian princes, building up their temporal 
principality by intrigue and craft such as was common at that 
day in Italian politics. 



III. OTHER STATES, 1300-1520 

The "Holy Roman Empire," it has been explained (p. 88), 
had come to mean merely Germany. The anarchy of the 
"Fist-law" period was checked in 1273 by the election of 
Rudolph of Hapsburg as Emperor. Rudolph was a petty 
count of a rude district in the Alps ("Hawks' nest"), and the 
princes had chosen him because they thought him too weak to 
rule them. The king of Bohemia, indeed, refused to recognize 
him as Emperor. Rudolph attacked Bohemia, and seized 
from it the duchy of Austria, which, until just now, has remained 
the chief seat of the Hapsburgs. In other ways he showed the 
now-familiar Hapsburg zeal to widen his personal domain. 




GERMANY AND 

ITALY 

During tbe InterreKuum 
1854.1378 

8C»1:E of M{LE8 

5 So ioo 



THE STATES OF EUROPE ABOUT 1500 119 

"Sit firm on Thy throne, O Lord," prayed one bishop, "or the 
Count of Hapsburg will shove Thee off." 

After Rudolph's death, the princes of the Empire (the Elec- 
toral College) passed the throne from family to family — until, 
in 1438, after a long line of Bohemian rulers, the imperial dig- 
nity came back to the Hapsburgs by the election of Albert, 
Duke of Austria. From this time, so long as the title endured, 
the "Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire" was of the House of 
Austria, and election became a form only. 

The last medieval Emperor was Maximilian I (1493-1519), 
the one romantic hero of the Hapsburg race. He made a noble 
effort to bring Germany abreast of England and France. In the 
end he failed utterly, because of the selfishness of the German 
nobles and his own haughty willfulness ; and Germany entered 
the Modern Age a loose confederacy of many petty sovereign states 
grouped about Austria. 

The Mohammedan invasion of 711 (p. 41), separated the Spain 
development of Spain from that of the rest of Europe. For ** *^® 
centuries, "Africa began at the Pyrenees." the Middle 

The wave of Moorish invasion, however, left unconquered ^^^^ 
a few resolute Christian chiefs in the remote fastnesses of the 
northwestern mountains, and in these districts several little 
Christian principalities began the long task of winning back their 
land, crag by crag and stream by stream. This they accomplished 
in eight hundred years of war, — a war at once patriotic and 
religious, Spaniard against African, and Christian against Infidel. 
The long struggle left the Spanish race proud, brave, warlike, 
unfitted for industrial civilization, intensely patriotic, and blindly 
devoted to the church. 

During the eight centuries of conflict, the Christian states 
spread gradually to the south and east, — waxing, fusing, 
splitting up into new states, uniting in kaleidoscopic combina- 
tions by marriage and war, — until, before 1400, they had 
formed the three countries, Portugal, Aragon, and Castile. 
Nearly a century later, the marriage of Isabella of Castile and 



120 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 




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THE STATES OF EUROPE ABOUT 1500 121 

Ferdinand of Aragon united .the two larger states, and in 1492 
their combined power captured Granada, the last Moorish 
stronghold. In the year that Columbus discovered America 
under Spanish auspices, Spain at home achieved national union 
and national independence. During the next two reigns, the 
Spanish monarchy, financed by the treasures of Mexico knd Peru, 
became the most absolute in Europe. 

While the civilized Mohammedan Moors were losing Spain, The Turks 
barbarous Mohammedan Turks were gaining southeastern Europe. *°^ 
They established themselves on the European side of the Helles- eastern 
pont first in 1346. Constantinople held out for a century more, Europe 
a Christian island encompassed by seas of Mohammedanism. 
But at Kossova (1389), the Turks completed the overthrow of 
the Serbs, and a few years later a crushing defeat was inflicted 
upon the Hungarians and Poles. Then in, 1453, Mahomet the 
Conqueror entered Constantinople through the breach where the 
heroic Constantine Palaeologus, last of the Greek emperors, 
died sword in hand. 

The Turks, incapable of civilization, always remained a hostile 
army encamped among subject Christian populations, whom 
their rule blighted. From 1453 to 1919, Constantinople re- 
mained the capital of their empire. That empire continued to 
expand for a century more (until about 1550), and for a time it 
seemed as though nothing could save Western Europe. Venice 
on sea, and Hungary by land, were long the two chief outposts 
of Christendom, and, almost unaided, they kept up ceaseless 
warfare to check the Mohammedan invaders. For a time, 
Hungary was conquered, and then Austria became the bulwark 
for Western Europe. 

Switzerland began to grow into a political state just before Switzerland 
the year 1300. The brave and sturdy peasantry, in their JJJi<j^e 
mountain fastnesses, had preserved much of the old Teutonic Ages 
independence. Some small districts (cantons) in the German 
Alps had belonged to the Hapsburg counts. When Rudolph 
of Hapsburg became duke of distant Austria (p. 118), he left 



122 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 




SMALL STATES ABOUT 1500 123 

these possessions to subordinate officers. These agents oppressed 
the Swiss by extortion and tyranny; and, in 1291, the three 
"Forest Cantons" — Uri, Schwyz, and Untenoaldcn — formed 
a "perpetual league" for mutual defense against tyranny. 

For two centuries, from time to time, the Hapsburgs invaded 
Switzerland with powerful armies, in order to reduce the 
mountaineers to subjection ; and very soon the league against 
oppression by the lord's agents became a league for independ- 
ence, against the lord himself. Freedom was established by 
two great victories, — Morgarten (1315) and Scmpach (1386), — 
struggles to which belong the myths of William Tell and of 
Arnold of Winkelried. Between these two battles, other 
cantons rebelled against their lords and joined the alliance. 
The new members — among them Bern, Zurich, and Luzern — 
were small city states, wealthier and more aristocratic than the 
original union. 

Soon after Sempach, the constitution of the league was revised. 

Each canton kept complete control over its own internal affairs, 

and the "Diet," or central congress of representatives, was 

hardly more than a meeting of ambassadors to manage foreign 

war and divide the plunder. The union kept this loose form 

until the French Revolution. 

The Netherlands (Low Countries) did not form an independent The 

Nether— 
state in the Middle Ages. They were made up of a group of lands 

provinces, part of them fiefs of the Empire, part of them French 

fiefs. The southern portion has become modern Belgium ; the 

northern part, modern Holland. The land is a low, level tract, 

and in the IVIiddle Ages it was more densely packed with teeming 

cities than any other part of Europe. 

The inhabitants were a sturdy, independent, slow, industrious, 
persistent people. Ghent claimed eighty thousand citizens able 
to bear arms, while Ypres is said to have employed two hundred 
thousand people in the M^aving of cloth. Wealth so abounded 
that the "counts" of this little district excelled most of the 
kings of Europe in magnificence. 

Manv of the cities, hke Kottevdam and Amsterdam, were 



124 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 



built on land wrested from the sea by dikes, and they took 
naturally to commerce. In their markets, the merchants from 
Italy and the south of Europe exchanged wares with the 
Hansa merchants of the Baltic. x\nd the Netherland towns 
were workshops even more than they were trading rooms. 

" Nothing reached their 
shores," says one histo- 
rian, " but received a more 
perfect finish : what was 
coarse and almost worth- 
less, became transmuted 
into something beautiful 
and good." Matthew 
Paris,^ a thirteenth century 
English chronicler, ex- 
claimed that "the whole 
world was clothed in Eng- 
lish wool manufactured in 
F land en'." 

The need of English 
wool for the Flemish looms 
made Flanders the ally of 
England in the Hundred 
Years' War. During this 
period the dukes of Bur- 
gundy became masters of 
Flanders. When Louis 
XI of France (p. 114) 
seized the rest of Bur- 
gundy from its last duke, 
Charles the Bold, the Flemish towns wisely chose to remain 
faithful to Mary, the daughter of Charles. 

In return for their fidelity, an Estates General of the prov- 
inces secured from Princess Mary a grant of The Great Privilege, 

» The name, Matthew of Paris, signifies that this English monk had 
studied at the University of Paris. 




Hall of the Clothmakers' Gild at 
Ypres, Belgium; begun, 1200; fin- 
ished, 1364. Cf. p. 96. 



THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES 125 

the "Magna Carta of the Netherlands" (1478). This docu- 
ment promised (1) that the provinces might hold Diets at will 
— composed, as before, of nobles and elected burgesses ; (2) that 
no new tax should be imposed but by the central Diet, the 
"Estates General"; (3) that no war should be declared but 
by the consent of that body ; (4) that offices should be filled by 
natives only ; and (5) that Dutch should be the official language. 
Mary married the young Maximilian of Hapsburg (p. 119), 
and the Netherlands passed to the House of Austria. 

IV. "EUROPE" AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

The rise of "monarchic states" is the political change that The " New 

marks the close of the Middle Ages. At the moment it seemed .^o"*'"'^'^" 

" _ les in 

a disaster to many great and good men, like the Italian Dante, Europe 
who had their minds fixed on the old ideal of a united Christen- 
dom. But, since the days of the old Roman empire, Europe 
had never known a true union. "Latin Christendom," in its 
best period, had contained several layers of society, — nobles, 
burgesses, artisans, priests, peasants. These horizontal lines 
of cleavage between classes had been far more disastrous to 
union than the new cleavage into nations was to be. One class 
had been more foreign to another in the same land than France 
to England. French noble and German noble were always 
ready to make common cause against peasants or townsfolk of 
either country. 

The real mission of each of the new monarchies, whether the 
monarchs saw it yet or not, was to weld all the classes within its 
land into one people with a common patriotism. While this was 
being done, some old liberties were lost. But, unconsciously, the 
monarchs were paving the way for a new freedom, a few centu- 
ries later, broader and safer than the world had ever known. 

We have noted the rise of new powerful monarchies in Eng- 
land, France, Spain, and Austria. Like governments had ap- 
peared in Hungary, Bohemia, Sweden, Denmark, and Poland. 
Two small lands, Switzerland and the Netherlands, were loosely 
connected with the Austrian Hapsburg monarchy. Two great 



126 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

lands had no part in the movement : until 1250, Germany 
and Italy had been the center of interest ; but their claim for 
universal rule had left them broken in fragments. Not for 
centuries were they to reach this new form of united monarchic 
government. Leadership, therefore, passed from them to France, 
Spain, and England, — the three countries in which the new 
movement was most advanced. Germany and Italy became 
little more than battle grounds for these other states. 

In Italy, in 1250, as a final blow at German dominance (p. 88), 
the pope had invited a French prince, Charles of Anjou, to 
become King of Sicily. Soon afterward, the city republics 
of North Italy (p. 99) fell under the rule of "tyrants," and by 
1450 the many petty divisions of the peninsula had been brought 
under one or another of "Five Great States," the Kingdom of 
Sicily in the south, the Papal States in the center, and Milan, 
Florence, and Venice, in the north. 

This movement toward unity, however, had not gone far 
enough to make Italy safe. In 1494, as heir of the House of 
Anjou, Charles VIII of France claimed the crown of Sicily, 
crossed the Alps with a mighty army, and marched victoriously 
from end to end of the peninsula, regulating at will not only 
the southern kingdom but the northern states as well. But 
behind him gathered insulted Italian foes ; Ferdinand of Aragon 
advanced a claim to Sicily ; and Venice joined the anti-French 
party. Charles secured his retreat into France by a desperate 
battle ; but Spain was left mistress of Sicily and Naples. 

Now sioift steps brought the Hapsburg poiver within sight of a 
world-monarchii . Ferdinand of Aragon had married one 
daughter to the young English prince soon to become Henry 
VIII, and another to Philip of Hapsburg, son of the Emperor 
Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy (p. 119). From this last 
marriage, in 1500", was born a child, Charles, 

Philip, father of Charles, had been ruler of the rich provinces 
of the Netherlands through his mother, Mary ; and his early 
death left those districts to Charles while yet a boy. In 1516 
Charles also succeeded his grandfather, Ferdinand, as king 



DANGER OF HAPSBURG WORLD MONARCHY 127 




Illustration from a Fifteenth Century Manuscript, showing in the 
foreground Maximilian of Austria, Mary of Burgundy, and their son 
Philip. The original is in colors, 



128 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

of Sicily and Naples and as king of Spain, with the gold-pro- 
ducing realms in America that had just become Spain's. Three 
years later he succeeded his other grandfather, Maximilian, 
as the hereditary ruler of Austria, with its niany dependent 
provinces. Then, still a boy of nineteen, Charles became a 
candidate for the title of Emperor, which Maximilian's death 
had left vacant ; and his wealth (or that of his Flemish mer- 
chants) enabled him to win against his rivals, Francis of France 
and Henry VIII of England. 

Thus Charles I of Spain, at twenty, became also Charles V, 
Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. This .election gave him a 
claim to lordship over Germany and the rest of Italy. His 
hereditary possessions made it seem possible for a while that 
he might make his claim good — and so more than restore 
the empire of the first great Charles (Charlemagne). 

Compact France, at first, was his only obstacle (p. 115); 
and no time was lost by Charles and the French Francis in 
joining battle. The battle of Pavia left Francis a captive, and 
France apparently at the Hapsburg's feet. But just then (1520) 
a?i obscure monk in Germany burned a papal bull and started 
a movement which split Germany and Europe at once into 
opposing camps, and rendered forever vain the dream of restoring 
the old imperial unity of Christendom. This was the political 
situation when Europe entered the new age of the Protestant 
Revolt. We must turn back once more to note the intellectual 
change that had prepared the way for that revolt. 

V. THE RENAISSANCE, 1300-1520 

The Age of Feudalism (pp. 54-104) covered five hundred 
years — from SOO to 1300. The first three centuries (800- 
1100) were a continuation of the "Dark Ages "of the barbarian 
invasion, after the brief interruption by Charlemagne. In 
those gloomy three hundred years we noted the grim feudal 
system at its height, the medieval church, serf labor, the destruc- 
tive strife between empire and papacy, and, at the close, the 
Norman conquest of England. 



THE RENAISSANCE 129 

The year 1100 was the threshold over which we passed from (2) The 
those centuries of gloom to two centuries of fruitful progress. ^™s*<*®s 
That Age of the Crusades saw also the rise of towns, of 
universities, of popular literatures, of Gothic architecture in 
cathedrals and town halls, of the growth of France out of 
feudal fragments into one kingdom, and of the rise of courts 
and of Parliament in England. 

The year 1300, to which we have now come, is another mile- The age of 
stone of progress, introducing two centuries of still more rapid „jf,,„ *°' 
advance. The period 1300-1520 we call the Age of the Renais- 
sance, because those centuries are marked by a "rebirth" of a long- 
forgotten way of looking at life. That old way had expressed itself 
in the art and literature of the ancient Greeks. Accordingly, 
the men of the new age were passionately enthusiastic over all 
remains of the old classical period. The fundamental char- Relation to 
acteristic of the Renaissance, however, was not its devotion to u?*""^"^ 
the past, but its joyous self-trust in the present. The men of the 
Renaissance cared for the ancient culture because they found 
there what they themselves thought and felt. 

Between those classical times and the fourteenth century The Ren- 
there had intervened centuries of verv different life — which ^^ssance 

and the 
we have been studying. Those "Middle Ages" had three feudal age 

marks on the intellectual side. (1) Ignorance was the general 
rule ; and even the learned followed slavishly in the footsteps of 
some intellectual master. (2) Man as an individual counted for 
little. In all his activities he was part of some gild or order or 
corporation. (3) Interest in the future life was so intense that 
many good men neglected the present life. Beauty in nature 
was little regarded, or regarded as a temptation of the devil. 

The Renaissance changed all this. (1) For blind obedience 
to authority, it substituted the free inquiring way in which the 
Ancients had looked at things. (2) Men developed new self- 
reliance and self-confidence, and a fresh and lively originality. 
And (3) they awoke to delight in flower and sky and mountain, 
in the beauty of the human body, in all the pleasures of the 
natural world. 



130 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

This transformation — one of the two or three most wonderful 
changes in all history — began first in Italy. It was well over in 
that land by 1550 ; while it hardly began in England until 1500, 
and there it lasted through Shakspere's age, to about 1600. 
It showed itself, too, at different times in different ways : first in 
art, then in a revival of learning, and finally in religious reform. 




St. Mark's, Venice. This is a famous example of Byzantine architecture, 
which was based upon the Romanesque, and modified by Gothic and 
Saracenic influences. Note the minarets and domes. See also the 
Ducal Palace on opposite page. 



Italy was the natural home for a revival in literature and art. 
Virgil had been read by a few Italian scholars all down the 
Middle Ages. The Italian language was nearer the Latin 
than any other European language was, and more manuscripts 
of the ancient Roman writers survived in Italy than elsewhere 
in Western Europe. Thus the Italian Petrarch (1304-1374) 
stands out the first great champion of the coming age. His 
graceful sonnets are a famous part of Italian poetry, but his 



THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 



131 



real work was as a tireless critic of the medieval system. He 
attacked vehemently the superstitions and false science of the 
day ; he ridiculed the universities, with their blind reverence 
for "authority," as "nests of gloomy ignorance." But he did 
more than destroy. He, and his disciples after him, began 
enthusiastic search for classical manuscripts and other remains, 
to recover what the ancients had possessed of art and knowledge. 
One of those disciples, Boccaccio, wrote the first dictionaries of 




The Ducal Palace, Venice, facing the Square of St. Mark's. 

classical geography and of Greek mythology, and brought back 

the study of Greek to Italy. 

After 1400, the knowledge of Greek grew rapidly among the The revival 

educated. Greek scholars were invited to the Italian cities and ?^ classical 

learning in 
were given professorships in the universities. Increasing Italy aided 

danger in the Greek Empire from the Turk made such invita- 
tions welcome, and the high prices paid by princely Italian 
collectors drew more and more of the literary treasures of Con- 
stantinople to the Italian cities. Many a fugitive scholar from 
the East found the possession of some precious manuscript 



by the fall 
of Con- 
stantinople 



132 BRIEF SURVEY OF EARLIER PROGRESS 

the key to fortune and favor. This movement received a 
sudden, but brief, acceleration when Constantinople fell, in 
1453. "Greece did not perish," said an Italian scholar; "it 
emigrated to Italy." And soon the new enthusiasm for the 
classics {humanism) captured even the universities, which at 
first had withstood it fiercely. 

Painting and sculpture were reborn, with the rebirth of delight 
in life. Italian painting culminated in the years from 1470 to 
1550. To these eighty years belongs the work of Leonardo da 
Vinci, Michael Angelo, Perugino, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, 
Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Correggio. A little later came 
the great periods of Dutch and Spanish painting. The new 
development in this art in all these lands was made possible, of 
course, by new methods of preparing oil paints, invented by the 
Van Eycks in Holland, so that it was possible to paint upon 
canvas, instead of only upon walls and ceilings. 



There was an evil, pagan side to the Italian Renaissance. 
The men of the new movement, having cast off old restraints 
and religious beliefs, fell often into gross and shallow unbelief 
and into shameless self-indulgence. Delight in beauty some- 
times sank into gross sensuality. Morals declined ; and for a 
time Italian society sank lower than the old pagan world. The 
"Men of the Renaissance" were always polished and elegant 
and full of robust vitality ; but many of them went to their goal 
recklessly by any means, and some of them were monsters of 
perfidy and cruelty. 

This side of the Renaissance was typified by the Italian 
Condottieri, — roving captains of bands of soldiers of fortune. 
These chieftains sold their services to any city with a price to 
pay, — '■ and then betrayed it, on occasion, or seized it for them- 
selves, if convenient. Such was the source of most of the 
Italian "tyrants" (p. 126) of the time. Many of them were 
generous patrons of art and learning; but their marked char- 
acteristics were indomitable will, reckless scorn of danger, 
powerful minds, and absolute freedom from moral scruple — 



THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE 133 

which led them to extremes of cruelty and perfidy whenever 
such measures seemed useful to them. Like traits show a few 
years later, in the Spanish conquerors of the New World, — 
Cortez, Pizarro, Balboa, and their fellows. The scores of Eng- 
lish sea-kings of the next century — Raleigh, Drake, Hawkins, 
Gilbert, Grenville (who fought "the fight of the one and the 
fifty-tliree " ^) — belong to the same order of men except that 
in them cruelty is refined into sternness, and perfidy is replaced 
by lofty honor — because of the moral earnestness of the 
Renaissance in the North. 

For in the north of Europe the Renaissance was religious The 

and scientific rather than artistic. A little before 1500, the religious 

... and 
"New Learning" from Italy was welcomed by an enthusiastic scientific 

group of young scholars in England, known as the "Oxford Renaissance 

Reformers." In Italy, Petrarch and his followers had started North 

the new science of "historical criticism," — a careful study 

of old and corrupted documents to find out their original form 

and true meaning. The Oxford Reformers developed this 

science into a means of correcting evils and errors that had 

crept into religion. 

This was especially true of Erasmus, a Hollander living in Erasmus, 
England. In 1516 he jiublished the New Testament in the 1466-1536 
original Greek, with a careful Latin translation. The Greek 
text was prepared much more carefully, and was undoubtedly 
much nearer the original gospels, than any the Middle Ages 
had known, and it was accompanied by critical notes. Now, 
for the first time, ordinary scholars could test the accuracy of 
the common translation (the Vulgate) in use in the church. 
Afterward Erasmus edited the writings of many early Christian 
Fathers, to show the character of early Christianity. 

In another sort of works, as in his Praise of Folly, Erasmus 
lashed the false learning and foolish methods of the monks and 
Schoolmen. He has been called "the Scholar of the Reforma- 
tion." His writings did furnish Luther (p. 135) with much 

1 Read Tennyson's poem of that name. 



134 



BRIEF SURVEY OP EARLIER PROGRESS 



material ready for use against the old religious system ; but 
Erasmus was not himself a revolutionist. Instead, he worked, 
with beautiful charity and patience and largeness of view, for 
reform ivithin the great mother church. 

Another leader of the Oxford Reformers was Sir Thomas 
More, one of the noblest Englishmen of any age. He was a 
distinguished scholar — his learning brightened by a gentle 
and pervading humor — and a man of great personal charm. 
In the year that Erasmus published his Greek Testament, More 
issued his Description of the Republic of Utopia ("Nowhere"). 
He portrays, with burning sympathy, the miseries of the English 
peasantry, and points accusingly to the barbarous social and 
political conditions of his time by contrasting with them the 
conditions in "Nowhere" — where the people elect their gov- 
ernment (which accordingly is devoted solely to their welfare), 
possess good homes, work short hours, enjoy absolute freedom 
of speech, high intellectual culture, and universal happiness, 
with all property in common. Utopia was the first of the many 
modern attempts to picture, in the guise of fiction, an ideal 
state of society. 

The new intellectual movement was marked by a number of 
new inventions or by the first practical use of them. Gunpowder, 
known for some time but much improved about 1500, gave the 
final blow to the already dying feudalism. Printing, from 
movable types (1450) upon cheap paper instead of parchment, 
did more to advance the new order than gunpowder could do to 
destroy the old. The telescope gave knowledge of other worlds. 
The mariner's compass came in time to enable Columbus to 
double the area of the world. 




Cologne Cathedral. — This magnificent structure was begun in 1248. 
The work proceeded slowly and was halted entirely during the Reformation. 
It was resumed in 1823 and was finally completed in 1880. 

The design was inspired by the Cathedral of Amiens, and all that is best 
in its architecture is French. 



136 



PART I 

THE AGE OF THE PROTESTANT REFOEMATION, 1520-1648 



CHAPTER I 

THE REFORMATION UPON THE CONTINENT 

LUTHERANISM 

All the later references to the church, in the preceding survey, The need 
have involved some mention of abuses growiner up within it. ^°^ 

rclicious 

Good Christians lamented those abuses. A few wise, broad- reform 
minded, genial men, like Erasmus and More (pp. 133-134), 
strove earnestly to reform them. Less patient; more impetuous 
men broke away in revolt against the church itself. This 
revolt divided Western Christendom into hostile camps for 
centuries. It is called the Protestant "Reformation" or, per- 
haps better, the Protestant "Revolt." This latter name helps 
us to keep in mind that the Protestant movement does not 
include a vast "reform" within the church itself, a reform 
begun by Erasmus and his associates and hastened of course 
by the "revolt." 

The revolt be'gan in Germany. That land had a special griev- Special 
ance. It was then a poor country ; but, since it lacked a strong 
government to protect it, its little, hard-won wealth was drained 
away to richer Italy by extortionate papal taxes of many sorts. 
A like abuse existed in other countries, but nowhere else in so 
serious a degree. From peasant to prince, the German people 
had long grumbled as they paid ; and they needed only a leader 
to rise against papal control. 

Martin Luther (1483-1546), son of a Thuringian peasant- Martin 
miner, became that needed leader. Luther was a born fighter, — ^^^^^^ 

13.7 



abuses 

in Germany 



138 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION 



a straightforward, forceful man, with a blunt homely way that 
sometimes degenerated into coarseness. Erasmus addressed 
polite society : Luther spoke to the people. His father had meant 
him to be a lawyer, and, with great difficulty, had managed to 
send him to a university ; but, seized by terror of hell and fear 
for his soul, the young Martin suddenly joined the Augustinian 
friars — an order somewhat like the Franciscans. His scholar- 
ship and his effective preaching soon attracted attention, and 




St. Peter's, Rome. — To the right stands the Vatican, the palace of 
the popes. 



Duke Frederick the Wise of Saxony made him a professor of 
theology in the new University of Wittenberg. There, at 
thirty-four, he entered upon his struggle with Rome. 

Luther's revolt began in his opposition to the sale of indul- 
gences. To get money to rebuild St. Peter's Cathedral at 
Rome, a German archbishop had licensed John Tetzel, a Do- 
minican, to sell indulgences. The practice was an old one, 
arising easily out of the doctrine of "penance." The authorized 
teaching of the church was, that, in reward for some pious act 
— or for the gift of money for a pious purpose — a sinner who 



MARTIN LUTHER 139 

had truly repented and icho had, so far as possible, atoned for 
his sins, might have the punishment due in purgatory remitted 
by the church. "Letters of indulgence" from the pope, — the 
immediate representative of St. Peter, — were especially valued, 
and it had become customary to sell them in great quantities as 
one source of the papal revenues. The ignorant masses, unable 
to read the Latin documents, often thought that an "indul- 
gence" was an unconditional pardon, — contrary to the doc- 
trine of the church, — or even that it was a license to sin in 
future; and some professional "pardoners," who peddled such 
"letters," encouraged these gross errors in their zeal to raise 
money. Tetzel was a special offender in this way. A rude 
German rhyme, ascribed to him, runs, "The money rattles in 
the box ; the soul from purgatory flies." More than a hundred 
years before Luther, the bright-souled Chaucer had given the 
only bitter lines in his Canterbury Tales to the Pardoner with his 
wallet "bret-ful of pardons, come from Rome all hot." Since 
then, the evil had grown hugely. The gentle Erasmus wrote 
scathing words against it. Luther had criticized it on more than 
one occasion. Now a visit of Tetzel to Wittenberg, with a batch 
of these papal letters, aroused him to more vehement protest. 

On a Sunday in October, 1517, Luther nailed to the door Luther's 
of the Wittenberg church ninety-five "theses" (statements) *^®^®^ 
upon which he challenged all comers to debate. That door was Germany 
the usual university bulletin board, and it was customary for one 
scholar to challenge others to debate in this way. 

But Luther's act had consequences far beyond the university. 
The theses were in Latin, the regular university language. They 
accepted the church doctrine about indulgences, but criticized 
savagely the abuses connected with the practice of selling them. 
Is there not danger, Luther hinted, that poor men may wonder 
why, if the pope releases souls from purgatory for money, he does 
not do so for charity's sake ? It was these criticisms that drew 
popular attention. The printing press scattered copies of the 
theses broadcast in German, and in a few days they were being 
discussed hotly over all Germany. 



140 THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION 

Luther and At first Luther seems to have had no thought of denying 

the pope ^j^p authority of the pope. Indeed, he asserted that the pope 

would be the first to condemn Tetzel's practices. And he was 

honestly amazed, too, at the public attention his theses received. 

He dedicated a pamphlet in defense of them to Pope Leo (X), and 

in his letter to the pope he says : 

"By what unlucky chance it is that these propositions of mine should 
go forth into nearly all the earth, I am at a loss to know. They were 
set forth here for our use alone. . . . But what shall I do? Recall 
them I cannot ; and yet I see that their notoriety bringeth upon me 
great odium. In order then to soften my adversaries, ... I send forth 
these trifles to explain my theses. For greater safety, I let them go 
forth, most blessed Father, under your name and under the shadow of 
your protection. Here all who will may see how basely I am behed. 
. . . Save or slay, call or recall, approve or disapprove, as it shall best 
please you, / shall acknowledge your voice as the voice of Christ." 

The matter of indulgences soon dropped out of sight. The 
papal legate in Germany reprimanded Tetzel so sternly for his 
gross mispractice that the offender is said to have died soon 
after from mortification. At all events, now that the church 
had its attention called so forcefully to the abuses, they were 
soon corrected.^- But, meanwhile, in the heat of argument, 
Luther passed quickly to a more radical position. He startled 
all parties by expressing approval of the heretic Hussites; 
and in 1519 he denied the authority of the pope and of church 

1 Catholics to-day admit, of course, that there had been good cause for 
complaint. One of the greatest of modern scholars, the Catholic Jansen 
{History of the German People, III, 92) declares that "grievous abuses" in 
the manner of offering indulgences "caused all sorts of scandal." The 
Council of Trent, which sat at intervals from 1545 to 156.3, to reform the 
church, reasserted the old doctrine in its purity, emphasizing the indispen- 
sable need of "contrition, confession, and atonement." It condemned 
"those who assert that indulgences are useless, or who deny the power of 
the church to grant them. ... In granting them, however, the Council 
desires that . . . moderation be observed. . . . And, being desirous of 
mending the abuses which have crept in, by occasion of which the honorable 
name of indulgences is blasphemed by heretics, the Council ordains . . . 
that all e-\dl gains for the obtaining thereof be abolished." In later times 
the practice of granting indulgences in return for money has been dis- 
continued. 



LUTHER AT WORMS 



141 



councils, appealing instead to the Bible as the sole rule of conduct 
and belief. 

Luther tried to substitute one authority for another. 
He had no intention of advancing freedom of thought. 
But the Bible is capable of many interpretations. His 
appeal to the Bible as the sole authority meant Luther's 
understanding of the Bible. In the mouth of another man, 
however, the same appeal meant that other's understand- 
ing of the book. So, unintentionally, the Protestant revolt 
came to stand for the right of individual judgment in matters 
of religion. 

Pope Leo, a gentle and good man, tried to bring the rebel back Luther 
into the church by persuasion and argument; but when this pap^^buU 
failed, he issued a bull of excommunication against Luther. 
The document condemned a number of the new teachings, 
ordered Luther to burn his books, and threatened him and his 
followers with punishment as heretics unless they recanted 
within two months. Instead of burning his own books, Luther 
burned the papal bull in a bonfire of other writings of the church, 
before the town gate in December, 1520, while a crowd of students 
and townsfolk applauded and brought fuel to feed the flames. 
Open war had begun between the German friar and the church. 

Luther was protected by his monarch, the Duke of Saxony; Luther 
and the pope appealed to the young Emperor, Charles V(p. 128), ** Worms 
to punish the heretic. Germany was in uproar. A papal 
legate wrote, "Nine-tenths of Germany shouts for Luther." 
The Emperor, coming to Germany for the first time, called an 
imperial Diet ^ at Worms (1521) and summoned Luther to be 
present, pledging safe conduct. 

Friends tried to dissuade Luther from going, pointing to the 
fate of Hus a century before ; but he replied merely, " I would 

1 The German Diet in early times contained only nobles. In the four- 
teenth century, representatives of the "free cities" were admitted. Then 
the Diet sat usuallj' in three Houses, Electors (the seven great princes). 
Princes (of second rank), and City Representatives. It never gained any 
real place in the government of the Empire. 



142 



THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 



go on if there were as many devils in Worms as there are tiles 
on the housetops." He found himself confronted with scornful 
contempt by the great dignitaries of the church and of the 
Empire, arrayed almost solidly against him. But he boldly 
answered the haughty command that he recant, — " Unless I 
am proven wrong by Scripture or plain reason ... my con- 
.science is caught in the word of God. . . . Here I stand. As 
God is my help, I can no otherwise." 

Charles kept his pledge, and Luther departed in safety. A 
month later the Diet pronounced against him the " ban of the 
Empire," ordering that he be seized for execution and that 
his writings be burned. But the friendly Frederick of Saxony 
had had him seized, on his way homeward, and carried into hid- 
ing in the castle of Wartburg. Here, while for a time most of his 
followers mourned him as dead, Luther translated the New 
Testament into strong and simple German. 

While he was still in hiding, his teachings were accepted by 
whole communities. Priests married; nuns and monks lef t • 
their convents; powerful princes joined the new communion, 
sometimes from honest conviction, sometimes as an excuse for 
seizing church lands. 

In 1522, in spite of dangers, Luther left his retreat to guide 
the movement again in person and to restrain it from going to 
extremes that he disliked. Changes in religion, he urged, 
should be made only by the governments, not by the people. 
He preserved all that he qould of the old church services and 
organization, establishing them on essentially the basis on which 
they still stand in the Lutheran church. By 1530, the Lutheran 
church, under the protection of the rulers of the various states, was 
in possession of North Germany. 



Meantime the revolt against the old church had led to the 
rise of some sects of wild fanatics, one of which found sanction 
for polygamy in its interpretation of the Bible. In 1525, there 
had been a great rising of the peasants, demanding, "in the name 
of God's justice," the abolition of serfdom and the right of each 



THE PEASANT WAR 



143 



Luther 
preaches 
a war 



parish to choose its own pastor. The peasants in Germany 
were in a much more deplorable condition than in England, and 
the new religious teachings had spread among them in connec- 
tion with new ideas about property, — somewhat as with the 
Lollard movement in England a hundred years before. So 
when they rose in arms, in several places they avenged centuries 
of cruel oppression by massacres of old masters. 

Luther feared discredit for his new church, and called furi- 
ously on the princes to put down this risjng with the sword — 
to "smite, strangle, or stab." The movement was quickly against the 
stamped out in blood. The brutal nobles slew many thousands P«*sants 
of peasants in merciless battle, and murdered at least ten 
thousand more in cold blood after the struggle was over, — 
with ghastly scenes that infinitely surpassed in horror any 
excesses by the ignorant peasants themselves. The whole 
peasant class was crushed down to a level far lower than before, 
— lower than anywhere else in Europe, — where they were to 
remain helpless for almost three hundred years. 

Charles V, the young emperor, was a zealous churchman. Foreign 

and if his hands had been free, he would have enforced the ban !^"^,^®®? 
. " . . Charles V 

of the Empire promptly and crushed Lutheranism at its birth, from acting 

But even while the Diet of Worms was condemning Luther, the 

Spanish towns were rising in revolt and Francis I of France was 

seizing Italian territory (p. 128). These events called Charles 

hastily from Germany. He put down the rebellion promptly 

and crushed the ancient liberties of the Spanish towns ; but the 

wars against France, and against the Turk, with only brief 

truces, filled the next twenty-three years (1621-1644);^ and 

so for a generation the new faith was left to grow strong. 



It is a peculiar fact that the two countries destitute of 
settled government gave Europe the Renaissance and the 

' Some features connected with those wars may be assigned for special 
reports, if the teacher cares to delay upon them. The following topics are 
especially suitable : The Battle of Pavia ; the sack of Rome by Charles' 
Lutheran soldiers ; the alliance between Francis and the Turkish Solyman ; 
Solyman's invasion of Germanj^ ; the ravages of Turkish piratea. 



144 



THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 



Reformation. The intense city life in the small Italian 
states was favorable to the intellectual activity of the 
Renaissance ; and the absence of strong central government 
was the condition which permitted Lutheranism so long 
to grow unchecked among the princes of Germany. 

The first pause in the French wars came in 1529. Charles 
at once summoned a German Diet at Speier, which reaffirmed 
the decree of Worms. Against this decision, however, the 
Lutheran princes in "the Diet presented a protest. This act 
gave the name Protestant to their party. 

The following year, in a Diet at Augsburg, the Lutherans put 
forward a written statement of their beliefs, "the Augsburg 
Confession," which is still the platform of the Lutheran church. 
Charles, however, prepared to enforce by arms the decrees of 
Worms and Speier. In defense, the Protestant nobles organized 
a League ; but an open clash was once more postponed, because 
Solyman the Magnificent, the Turkish Sultan, invaded Germany 
and threatened the imperial capital, Vienna. 

Before Charles was again at liberty to give his attention to his 
Protestant subjects, Lutheranism had become the religion not 
only of most of Germany but also of all Scandinavia, while the 
English church had cut itself off from Rome as an independent 
Episcopal church (p. 154), and a new Presbyterian heresy had 
begun to spread rapidly in France. 

Try as he might, Charles did not find himself free to strike 
in Germany until 1546, the year of Luther's death. Then two 
brief struggles settled the contest for the time. In the first, 
Charles seemed completely victorious; but, almost at once the 
defeated princes rallied again, drove Charles in hurried flight 
from their domains, and forced him to accept the Peace of 
Augsburg (1555). 

According to this treaty, each ruling prince of the Empire 
was free to choose between Lutheranism and Catholicism for 
himself and for all his subjects ; but if an ecclesiastical ruler 
became a Protestant, he was to surrender his lands to the 













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LUTHER AND ZWINGLI 145 

church, from whom they came. This peace secured toleration 
for princes only, not for their subjects. The people were ex- 
pected to follow the religion of the ruler. 

The Protestants in their last rising had sought aid from Abdication 
Henry II, the new French king ; and France for her reward had 
seized some German districts, including the city of Metz. 
Chagrined at the loss, and disheartened by the split within the 
Empire, Charles abdicated his many crowns in 1556. His 
brother Ferdinand became ruler of Austria, and soon after 
was chosen Emperor, while by marriage he added Hungary to 
the Hapsburg hereditary dominions. Charles' son, Philip II, 
received the Netherlands, Spain, Naples, and Spanish America. 

There were now tivo Hapsburg Houses, one in Spain, one in 
Austria. France, with some reason, feared that she might be 
crushed between them, and was long eager to take advantage of 
any chance to weaken them, or to seize German lands at their 
expense. 

For Further Reading. — The opening chapters of Beard's Martin 
Luther picture conditions in Germany. Lindsay's Luther and the 
German Reformation is excellent and brief. Much source material is 
given in Robinson's Readings. The great Catholic histories are too 
extended and costly for high schools ; but, if students have access to 
the work, they should consult the scholarly Catholic Encyclopedia 
("Luther," ix, 438 ff.; "Indulgences," VII, 783 ff., etc.). 

CALVINISM — IN SWITZERLAND AND FRANCE 

While Lutheranism was winning North Germany and Scan- 
dinavia, another form of Protestantism, Calvinism, was growing 
up in Switzerland and, for a time, in France and even in the 
west of Germany. 

This movement was started in 1519 (the year before Luther Zwingli 
burned the papal bull), by Zwingli, a priest at Zurich, in German 
Switzerland. Zwingli, like Luther, was of peasant birth, but 
he too had enjoyed a good education. He was far more radical 
than Luther. Luther tried to keep everything of the old worship 
and doctrine that he did not think forbidden by the Bible. But 



and 
Luther 



146 THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION 

Zwingli refused to keep anything of the old that he did not think 
absolutely commanded by the Bible. He also organized a strict 
system of church discipline which severely punished gaming, 
swearing, drunkenness, and some innocent sports. 

The contrast between Zwingli and Luther appeared clearly 
in their different attitude toward the Catholic doctrine of tran- 
suhstantiation. Catholics believe that the bread and wine of the 
communion are turned by the sacrament into the actual body 
and blood of Christ. Luther tried to hold as much of this 
doctrine as he could, and to keep to a literal use of Christ's 
words — "This is my body" {Mark, xxiv, 23). He taught 
that the bread and wine were still bread and wine as they 
seemed, but that the body and blood of Christ were also 
present, along with them in the communion. " Consubstantia- 
tion" was the term used to signify this doctrine. The followers 
of Zwingli held that Christ's words were figurative, and that 
the bread and wine were only symbols to remind us of his 
sacrifice. 

This difference prevented a union between the two Protestant 
movemenis. Zwingli attempted to secure union, and a con- 
ference was arranged in 1529. But Luther stuck stubbornly 
to his text — "This is my body," and when Zwingli offered his 
hand in token of amity, Luther refused to take it unless Zwingli 
would first accept those words literally. 

This division illustrates the way in which the Protestant 
appeal to private judgment was to give rise to a multitude 
of sects. At first, in particular, these sects were scan- 
dalously hostile to one another; and, in Germany, the 
mutual hatred of Lutherans and Calvinists endangered 
more than once the whole cause of Protestantism. When 
the Lutheran princes secured the Peace of Augsburg for 
themselves, they did not include Calvinists in the toleration 
they secured. Catholics, of course, pointed to such dis- 
sensions as proof of the necessity of trusting to the collec- 
tive wisdom of the church, rather than to individual judg- 



JOHN CALVIN 147 

ments — as conservatives and reactionaries always find 
argument in the absurdities of progressives. 

Zwingli's teachings were accepted rapidly by the rich "city 
cantons" of Switzerland, both German and French, like Zurich 
and Berne. But the peasant "forest cantons," the core of the 
original confederation (p. 123), remained Catholic. In a battle 
between the two parties, in 1531, Zwingli was killed; but his 
work was soon taken up — and carried further — by the man 
whose name has come to stand for the whole movement. 

John Calvin was a young French scholar of sternly logical Calvin 
mind. He is the father of Puritan theology and of the Presby- ** Geneva 
terian church, with its system of synods and presbyteries. 
This system of church government and doctrine he built up at 
Geneva. 

Geneva was a French town in the Swiss Alps. It was not 
yet a member of the Swiss confederation, but it had recently 
become a free city-republic by rebellion against its overlord. 
That overlord had been a Catholic ecclesiastic ; and so Geneva 
was now ready to accept the teachings of Zwingli. 

In 1536, Calvin, a fugitive from France because of his heresy, 
found refuge at Geneva, and soon became there an absolute dicta- 
tor over both the church and the civil government. Indeed, the 
civil government of the city was absorbed in the church govern- 
ment, and Geneva became a Puritan "theocracy" "with Calvin 
for its pope." 

Calvin took the law of Moses rather than the spirit of Christ 
for the basis of his legislation. Blasphemy he counted a capi- 
tal crime, arid he once had a child beheaded because it had 
struck its father. The government repressed harshly amuse- 
ments like dancing, and it tyrannized over the private life of 
citizens, punishing sternly for absence from church and for 
liixury in dress. But it did make turbulent and unruly Geneva 
into a sober, industrious commonwealth, and it furnished 
many hints for the Puritan colony of Massachusetts a century 
later. 



148 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION 



One terrible case of persecution, in particular, stains Calvin's 
fame, Servettis was a learned Spanish physician, with intense 
religious convictions somewhat like those of modern Unitarians. 
He had had some literary controversies with Calvin ; but, to 
escape from Catholic persecution as a heretic at home, he fled 
to Geneva. Calvin's government there seized him, tried him 

in its own way for heresy, 
and burned him at the stake. 
Incidentally, this crime 
put back medical progress for 
at least fifty years. The 
foundation of true medical 
science lies in a knowledge 
of the circulation of the 
blood, as taught in any ele- 
mentary physiology to-day. 
But in the time of Servetus, 
it had been believed for 
centuries that the bright 
blood of the arteries and 
the dark blood of the veins 
were two distinct systems, 
one from the heart, the other 
from the liver. Servetus 
first discovered that the two 
were one system. He found 
out how the dark blood is purified in the lungs, and understood 
fully the work of the heart. He had just published his medical 
discovery in the same book that contained his theological opin- 
ions. His persecutors sought out and burned this volume so 
zealously that only two copies (out of the edition of a thou- 
sand) have survived, and these were long overlooked. The 
great discovery in physiology — which would have shown 
how to save hundreds of thousands of lives — was lost for 
half a century, until made again, independently, in England 
(p. 179). 




A Village Merrymaking of the six- 
teenth century, such as Calvin con- 
demned. Compare the earlier May- 
pole merry-making pictured on 
page 68. 



THE CATHOLIC "COUNTER-REFORMATION" 149 

It is worthy of note that CathoHc Spain early erected a 
statue in honor of Servetus ; and, in 1903, Calvinists all over 
the world subscribed a fund for the erection of the noble " ex- 
piatory statue," which stands in Geneva .to mark the spot 
where he suffered martyrdom. 

Calvin's writings influenced profoundly his own and future Calvinism 

times. Ardent reformers from all Europe flocked to Geneva 1? Scotland, 

. . England, 
to imbibe his teachings, and then returned to spread Calvinism and 

in their oum, lands. From Geneva came the seeds of Scotch '"°®"<^* 
Presbyterianism, of the great Puritan movement within the English 
church (soon to be treated), of the leading Protestant movement 
among the Dutch, and of the Huguenot church in France. John 
Winthrop, the founder of Massachusetts, took his ideas both 
in religion and in politics from Calvin. It is from the French 
Calvin, not the German Luther, that modern liberal Protestant- 
ism has sprung. 

In its original form., the Calvinistic doctrine seems to nearly 
all men of the present time too somber and merciless. It was, 
however, sternly logical. It made strong men, and it appealed 
to strong spirits. True, Calvin did not believe in democracy, 
and he taught that for "subjects" to resist even a wicked ruler 
was "to resist God"; but, in spite of this teaching, in the 
course of historical movements, Calvinism became the ally of 
political freedom in Holland, England, and America. 



CATHOLICISM KEEPS THE SOUTH OF EUROPE 

For a time. Protestantism promised to win also the south xhe 
of Europe ; but Spain, Italy, France, Bohemia, and South " Counter- 
Germany, were finally saved to Catholicism. tion" 

This was mainly because the old church quickly purged itself 
of old abuses. At first Erasmus and other Humanists had been 
interested in the work of Luther. But when it became plain 
that that movement was breaking up the unity of Christendom, 
they were violently repelled by it. Disruption into warring 
sects, they felt, was a greater evil than existing faults. They 



150 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION 



continued to work, however, with even greater zeal than before, 
for reform within the church. 

Such reform was finally carried out by the Council of Trent 
(1545-1563). That great body did not change Catholic forms; 
but it defined some doctrines more exactly, pruned away evils 
(note on p. 140), and infused a greater moral energy into the 
church. 

The new religious enthusiasm within the Catholic world 
gave birth, also, to several new religious orders. The most 
important of these was the "Order of Jesus " (Jesuits), founded 
in 1534 by Ignatius Loyola, a gallant Spanish gentleman of deep 
religious feeling. 

The Jesuits stood to the friars somewhat as the friars stood 
to the older monks (p. 76). Holding fast like the friars to 
an intensely religious pri\-ate life, they represented a further 
adftance into the world of public affairs. Their members mingled 
with men in all capacities. Especially did they distinguish 
themselves as statesmen and as teachers. Their schools were 
the best in Europe, and many a Protestant youth was won 
back by them to Catholicism. In like manner, as indi^'idual 
counselors, they converted many a Protestant prince — es- 
pecially in Germany, where the religion of the prince deter- 
mined that of his people ; and their many devoted missionaries 
among the heathen in the New Worlds won vast regions to 
Christianity and Catholicism. 

Unhappily less praiseworthy forces had a share in the victory 
of Catholicism. Religious wars, we shall see (p. 166 ff.), in 
large part kept France, Bohemia, and South Germany Catholic ; 
and elsewhere the final success of the Catholic church in crush- 
ing out Protestantism was due in part to the Inquisition. 

The Inquisition dated hack to the twelfth century, some three 
hundred years earlier. At that time the church had suffered 
one of its periods of decline ; and discontent with its corruption 
had given rise to several small heresies. The most important 
of these twelfth century heretical sects were the Albigenses in 
southeastern France. They rejected some doctrines of the 



THE SPANISH INQUISITION 151 

church, and they rebelled especially against its government 
by pope and priesthood — so that an old by-word, " I had rather 
be a Jew," became, for them, " I had rather be a priest" ! 

The church had made many vain attempts to reclaim these 
heretics by gentle persuasion, and finally, the great reforming 
pope. Innocent III, proclaimed a "holy war" against them, 
declaring them "more wicked than Saracens." The feuda' 
nobles of northern France rallied gladly to this war. Aside 
from religious motives, they hated the democracy which was 
beginning to appear in the rising towns of the south, and they 
hungered greedily for the rich plunder of that more civi- 
lized region. A twenty years' struggle, marked by ferocious 
massacres, crushed the heretics, along with the prosperity 
— for a century — of what had been the richest province of 
France. 

When open resistance ceased in desolated Languedoc, the 
pope set up a special court to hunt out and exterminate any 
secret heretics remaining there. Soon afterward, this court, 
enlarged and reorganized, became a regular part of the govern- 
ment of the church for suppressing heresy. In this final form 
it is commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition. It held 
sway also in Portugal and Italy, as well as in the wide-lying 
possessions of Spain ; but England and the Scandinavian lands 
never admitted it, and France only in very slight degree. 

In the south of Europe, now, the Inquisition became one The Spanish 
means of stifling the new Protestant heresies. Its methods and"prot*° 
were atrocious. Children were encouraged to betray their estantism 
parents, and parents their children. Often upon secret accusa- 
tion by spies, a victim disappeared, without warning, to under- 
ground dungeons. The trial that followed was usually a farce. 
The court seldom confronted the accused with his accuser, or 
allowed him witnesses of his choosing ; and it extorted confes- 
sion by cruel tortures, carried to a point where human courage 
could not endure. Acquittals were rare. The property of 
the convicted went to enrich the church, and the heretic him- 
self was handed over to the government for death by fire. 



152 THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION 

Persecution of unbelievers was characteristic of the age. It 
disgraced every sect, Protestant ns well as Catholic. But no 
Protestant land possessed a de\ice so admirably calculated to 
accomplish its purpose as the Inquisition. In Spain, especially, 
it sifted out for destruction thousands upon thousands of the 
stoutest hearts and best brains, and played a great part in the 
intellectual blight that soon fell upon that people (p. 171). 

For Further Reading. — Ward's The Counter-Reformation is the 
best brief account of its subject. Much interesting matter on Jesuit 
missionaries can be found in Parkman's histories, especially in Pioneers 
of New France, chs. v and vi, and Jesuits in North America, ch. ii. 



CHAPTER II 

ENGLAND AND THE PROTESTANT MOVEMENT 

In England, separation from Rome was at first the act of the Henry VIII 

monarchs, and the motives were personal and political. Henry ^^^ ^s 

1 • II. • quarrel with 

VIII (the second Tudor v had shown himseli zealous against the pope 

Luther, and had even written a book to controvert Luther's 
teaching, in return for which the pope had conferred upon 
him the title, "Defender of the Faith." A little later, how- 
ever, Henry desired a divorce from his wife, the unfortu- 
nate Catherine of Aragon, aunt of Charles V (p. 126), with 
whom he had lived for nineteen years. Catherine's only child 
was a girl (Mary), and Henry was anxious for a son, in order 
to secure a peaceful succession at his death. More to the point, 
he wished sinfully to marry Anne Boleyn, a lady of the court. 
After long negotiation, the pope refused to grant the divorce. 
Thereupon Henry put himself in the place of the pope so far 

1 Cf. p. 113. The following table of Tudor rulers shows also the claim of 
the first ruler of the next royal family. 

(1) Henry VII (1485-1509) (vSee p. 113). 



Margaret 

(m. James IV of Scotland) 

I 

James V of Scotland 

I 
Mary Queen of Scots 

I 
(6) James I 
of England 
(1603-1625) 

the first 
§tuart king 



(2) Henry VIII (1509-1547) 



Mary 
(grandmother of 
Lady Jane Grey) 



(4) Mary 
(1553-1558) 
(daughter of 

Catherine 
of Aragon) 



(5) Elizabeth 
(1558-1603) 
(daughter of 

Anne Boleyn) 



(3) Edward VI 
(1547-1553) 

(son of 
Jane Seymour) 



153 



154 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 



PU- 



as his island was concerned, and secured the divorce from his 
own courts. 

Three wives of Henry are named in the footnote on the 
preceding page. He had also three more, — marrying the 
third on the day after he beheaded Anne Boleyn for alleged 
immoral conduct. One other of the six was beheaded 
on a similar accusation ; and one was divorced, after six 
months, because homely. 

The secession of the English church was accomplished in 
the years 1532-1534 by two simple but far-reaching measures 
of Henry's servile Parliament. (1) The clergy and people were 
forbidden to make any further payments to "the Bishop of 
Rome"; and (2) the "Act of Supremacy" declared Henry the 
"only supreme head on earth of the Church of England." When 
Parliament passed these laws, Luther's movement was some 
twelve years old, and the Augsburg Confession had just been 
put into form. Zwingli had just been slain in Switzerland, and 
Calvin was about to take up his work. 

So far, in England, there had been no attack on the religious 
doctrines of the old church ; and Henry wished none. But his 
chief advisers, especially Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
who had pronounced his divorce, had strong Protestant lean- 
ings ; and so some additional measures were secured. The 
doctrine of purgatory was declared false; and the Bible, in 
English, was introduced into the church service, in place of 
the old Latin liturgy. The use of the English Bible was even 
permitted to private persons, except "husbandmen, artificers, 
journeymen, and women below the rank of gentlewoman" 
(a gentry title) . 

Most of England accepted these changes calmly, and even 
the clergy made no serious resistance, as a class, to the over- 
throw of the pope's power. But the monasteries were centers 
of criticism, and the north of England, more conservative than 
the south, was restless. Finally Henry hung ten friars, who 
had spoken blunt words about his second marriage, and began 



DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES 155 

to seizes monastery property. Then the northern counties rose, 
to march upon London. 

Economic causes, too, had a part in the rising. The peasants 
were full of discontent at new conditions that will be described 
later (p. 182), and at a general rise in the cost of living which 
marked that period almost as emphatically as a like rise has 
marked the first of the twentieth century. The banner of the 
rebels bore a ploiv alongside the ivounds of Christ. 

Henry's generals broke up this "Pilgrimage of Grace" by Henry's 
promises of redressing grievances and of full pardon. But P° „ ^ . . 
then Henry wrote : " You must cause such dreadful executions fulness " 
on a good number of the inhabitants, — hanging them on 
trees, quartering them, and setting their heads and quarters 
in every town, — as shall be a fearful warning." And to carry 
out this treacherous policy of "f rightfulness," seventy-four 
leaders of the rising were executed, — among them, all the abbots 
in the north of England. 

Then Henry determined to root out resistance, and to enrich Dissolution 
himself, by the utter ruin of the monasteries. A commission, 
which had hastily pretended to investigate them, declared them 
grossly corrupt. The report was grossly unfair, but it had 
been determined upon in advance ; and, at the king's wish, 
Parliament dissolved the seven hundred such institutions in 
England. 

A little of the wealth of the monasteries was set aside to found 
schools and hospitals (in place of the work in such lines formerly 
done by the monasteries themselves), but Henry seized most 
of the monastic lands for the crown. . Then he parceled out 
parts of them, shrewdly, to new nobles and the gentry. 
Thousands of influential families were enriched by such gifts, 
and became centers of hostility to any reconciliation with 
Rome that would ruin their private fortunes. 

This dissolution of the monasteries was a deed of terrible 
cruelty. Many abbots who tried to resist the king's will were 
put to death ; but the most cruel results were felt by those 



of the 
monasteries 



156 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 



who lived. Eight thousand monks and nuns were driven, 
penniless, from their homes, and some eighty thousand other 
people lost their means of livelihood. But Henry had de- 
stroyed hostility to his "reform," and had' planted it deep in 
the interests of the country gentry and nobles. It is true, too, 
that, when things finally adjusted themselves to the revolution, 




Tewksbury Abbey, one of the few buildings of this class to escape ruin. 

the prosperity of England was increased by having the former 
property of the monasteries in lay hands. 

These changes were as far as Henry would go. He had per- 
mitted little change in doctrine ; and, to the close of his long 
reign, he beheaded "traitors" who recognized papal headship, 
and burned "heretics" who denied papal doctrines. In one 
day, in 1540, three "heretics" and three "traitors" suffered 
death. One Protestant martyr was Anne Askewe, a gentle- 
woman of good family, who was burned for insisting, "The 



MARY TUDOR 



157 



bread of the communion cannot be God." The most famous 
among the many noted CathoHc martyrs was Sir Thomas 
More, the greatest EngUshman of the day (p. 134). More had 
been Henry's chief minister, for a time. He was wiUing to 
allow the king's power over the church, so far as aA\ temporal 
matters were concerned ; but he could not take an oath denying 
the pope's authority in spiritual matters. He was beheaded, 
and his head was impaled to 
wither on London Bridge. 
Every eifort had been 
made to induce More to 
yield, and he had been plied 
with argument by subtle 
logicians. He was a broad- 
minded man and a states- 
man, — not disposed to die 
for a quibble. But con- 
science, not verbal quibble, 
was at stake. And when he 
had taken his stand, and 
the boat was bearing him 
down the Thames to prison, 
he was heard to exclaim, — 
" I thank the Lord, the field 
is won!" He had indeed 
won a supreme victory, not only for his own soul, but for the 
spiritual freedom of all the world. 




Sir Thomas More. — After Rubens' 
copy of Holbein's portrait. 



Henry was succeeded by his son Edward VI (1547-1553). Edward 
The new king was a boy of nine, and during his short reign the cution^of * 
government was held by a rapacious clique of Protestant lords. Catholics 
Partly to secure fresh plunder from the ruin of the church, 
this government tried to carry England into the full current 
of the Protestant movement. Priests were allowed to marry. 
The use of the old litany, and of incense, holy water, and the 
surplice, was forbidden. Commissioners to carry out these 



158 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 



commands throughout England sometimes broke the stained 
glass windows of sacred buildings and tore from the pedestals 
the carved forms of saints. Rebellion broke out, this time in 
southwestern England, but was put down cruelly. Several 
Catholics were burned as heretics and conspirators, — among 
them Father Forest, who was roasted barbarously in a swinging 
iron cradle over a slow fire. 

During this period, the English Prayer Book was put into 
its present form, under the direction of Cranmer (p. 154) ; and 
articles of faith for the church were adopted which inclined 
toward Calvinistic doctrine. 

Henry had had Parliament fix the order in which his chil- 
dren should be entitled to succeed him ; and so when Edward 
died at fifteen, the throne passed to his elder half-sister, Mary 
(1553-1558). Mary was a daughter of Catherine of Aragon 
(p. 153). She was an earnest Catholic, and naturally she felt 
an intense personal repugnance for the Protestant movement 
which had begun in England by the disgrace of her mother. 
Mary's own crown, too, had been threatened by Protestantism. 
To prevent the accession of a Catholic, the Protestant lords had 
plotted to seat on the throne Lady Jane Grey, a distant relative 
of the royal family (footnote, page 153). The attempt failed, 
and Jane Grey, a girl of lovely character, was beheaded. 

The nation was still overwhelmingly Catholic in feeling. 
The Protestants were active, organized, and influential ; but 
they were few in numbers, and Mary had no difficulty in doing 
away with the Protestant innovations of her brother's time. But 
Mary wanted more than this. She wished to undo her father's 
work, and to restore England to its allegiance to the pope. Parlia- 
ment readily voted the repeal of all anti-Catholic laws, but 
it refused . stubbornly to restore the church lands. Finally 
the pope wisely waived this point. Then the nation was 
solemnly absolved, and received back into the Roman church. 

But Mary destroyed her work (1) hy marrying Philip of 
Spain, son of the Emperor Charles V, and (2) by a bloody perse- 
cution of Protestants. 



MARY TUDOR 159 

All English patriots dreaded, with much reason, lest little 
England be made a mere province of the world-wide Spanish 
rule ; and even zealous Catholics shuddered at the thought of 
the Spanish Inquisition which their imagination pictured loom- 
ing up behind the Queen's hated Spanish bridegroom. 

This dread of the Inquisition made the people unusually 
sensitive to Mary's religious persecution. That persecution in 
itself was quite enough to rouse popular fear and hatred. In 
a few months, more than two hundred and seventy martyrs 
were burned, — nearly half the entire number that suffered 
death for conscience' sake in all English history. Catholics 
had died for their faith under both Henry and Edward ; but 
there had been no such piling up of executions ;' and, moreover, 
most of those Catholic victims had been put to death, nom- 
inally, not for religious opinions, but as detested traitors ; and 
the executions (with a very few exceptions) had taken place 
not by fire but by the more familiar headsman's ax. England 
had taken calmly the persecutions by these preceding sovereigns, 
but it was now deeply stirred. 

The most famous martyrs of Mary's persecution were Arch- 
bishop Cranmer and Bishops Ridley and Latimer. Latimer 
had preached in approval of the torture of Father Forest (p. 158) ; 
but now he showed at least that he too knew how to die a hero. 
"Play the man, Master Ridley," he called out to his companion 
in martyrdom, as they approached the stake ; " we shall this 
day, by God's grace, light such a candle in England as, I trust, 
shall never be put out." 

Other causes, too, made Mary unpopular. To please her Mary's 
husband (Philip) she led England into a silly and disastrous ""pop"- 
war with France, and then managed it so blunderingly that 
England lost Calais, its last foothold on the continent. Eng- 
land had never seemed more contemptible to other nations or 
in greater perils. Apparently, it was doomed to become the 
prey of Spain or France. 

Mary had come to the throne amid a burst of popular en- 
thusiasm. She was a pure-minded but narrow woman, seeking 



160 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 



earnestly to do her duty ; but, after a reign of five years, she 
died more universally detested than any other English sovereign 
had ever been except the tyrant John. As Henry's parliaments 
had arranged, she was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, 
then twenty-five years old. 

Elizabeth (1558-1603) was the daughter of Henry VHI and 
Anne Boleyn. From her father, she had a strong body, power- 
ful intellect, an imperious will, and dauntless courage ; and 







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Kenil WORTH Castle. — From a fresco painting of 1620. Queen Elizabeth 
gave this castle to her favorite, the Earl of Leicester, who entertained the 
Queen there in a splended pageant described in Scott's Kenilworth. The 
walls enclosed seven acres. 

from her mother, vanity and love of display. From both 
parents she took a sort of bold beauty and a certain strain of 
coarseness. She had grown up in Henry's court among the 
men of the New Learning (p. 133), and was probably the best 
educated woman of her century, — speaking several languages 
and reading both Latin and Greek. She has been called "a 
true child of the Renaissance," too, in her freedom from moral 
scruple (p. 132). To Elizabeth, says a great historian, "a lie 
was simply an intellectual means of avoiding a difficulty." 



QUEEN ELIZABETH 



161 



She was often vacillating in policy ; but she was a keen judge 
of men, and had the good sense to keep about her a group of 
wise and patriotic counselors, chief of whom were Walsingham 
and Cecil (whom she made Lord Burghley).^ Now and then, 
in fits of passion, she stormed at these men like a common 
virago, but she never let them go ; and her shrewd common- 
sense made her the real ruler even among such statesmen. 
Above all, she had a deep love for her country. After more 
than forty years of rule, she said proudly, and, on the whole, 




Kenilworth Castle To-day. ^ From a photograph. 



truly, — " I do call God to witness, never thought was cherished 
in my heart that tended not to my subjects' good." 

And England repaid her love with a passionate and romantic 
devotion to its "Virgin Queen." Except for her counselors, 
men knew little of Elizabeth's deceit and weaknesses. They 
saw only that her long reign had piloted England safely 
through a maze of foreign perils, and had built up its power 
and dignity abroad and its unity and prosperity at home, 

' The Lords Salisbury, who have played so large a part in the England of 
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are Cecils, and direct descendants 
of Elizabeth's Cecil. 



162 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 



while her court was made glorious by splendid bands of states- 
men, warriors, and poets. Amid the petty squabbles of suc- 
ceeding reigns, England looked back with longing to "the 
spacious days of great Elizabeth." 

When Elizabeth came to the throne, at least two thirds of England 
was still Catholic in doctrine. Elizabeth herself had no liking 
for Protestantism, while she did like the pomp and ceremonial 
of the old church. She wanted neither the system of her sister 
nor that of her brother, but would have preferred to go back 
to that of her father. But the extreme Catholic party did not 
recognize her mother's marriage as valid, and so denied Eliza- 
beth's claim to the throne. This forced her to throw herself 
into the hands of the Protestants. She gave all chief offices 
in church and state to that active, intelligent, well-organized 
minority; and the "Elizabethan Settlement" established the 
English Episcopal church much as it still stands. At about 
the same time, John Knox brought Calvinism from Geneva to 
Scotland, and organized the Scotch Presbyterian church. 

Early in Elizabeth's reign, an "Act of Uniformity" had 
ordered all people to attend the Protestant worship, under 
threat of extreme penalties ; but for many years this act was 
not enforced strictly, and Catholics were permitted to have 
their own services, if they were cloaked by a pretense of privacy. 
But after Catholic plots against her throne began, Elizabeth 
adopted stronger measures. Many leading Catholics were 
fined and imprisoned for refusing to attend the English church. 
And, under a new law, Catholic priests, and others who made 
converts from Protestantism to Catholicism, were declared 
guilty of treason. Many martyrs suffered torture on the rack 
and death on the scaffold — nearly as many as had died in the 
persecution of " Bloody Mary" ; but Elizabeth, like her brother, 
succeeded in making such executions appear punishment of 
traitors for political plots, instead of religious persecution. 

England was constantly threatened by the two great powers 
of Europe, Catholic France and Spain. Neither, however, was 
willing to see the other gain England ; and by skillfully playing 



THE SPANISH ARMADA 



163 



off one against the other, Elizabeth kept peace for many years 
and gained time for England to grow strong. Gradually it 
became more and more clear that the real foe was Spain. Then 
Elizabeth secretly gave aid to the Dutch, who were in rebellion 
against Philip II of Spain (p. 167), and, for years, English 
adventurers like Francis Drake sailed away on their own ac- 
count, half pirate fashion, 
to attack Spain in the New 
World. 

Finally Philip turned 
savagely upon England. 
Drake ruined his first prep- 
arations for invasion by 
sailing daringly into the 
harbor of Cadiz and burn- 
ing the Spanish fleet, — 
" singeing the beard of the 
Spanish king," as the bold 
sea-rover described it. But 
in 1588 the "Invincible 
Armada," blessed by the 
pope, at last set sail for 
England. English ships 
of all sorts — mostly little 
merchant vessels hastily transformed into a war navy — 
gathered in the Channel ; and, to the amazement of the world, 
the small but swift and better handled English vessels com- 
pletely outfought the great Spanish navy in a splendid nine 
days' sea fight. As the shattered Spaniards fled around the 
north of Scotland, a mighty storm completed their overthrow. 
Spain never recovered her supremacy on the sea, — and the 
way was prepared for the English colonization of America. 

To the chagrin of Spanish king and Roman pope, the mass of England 
English Catholics had proved more English than papal, and pro°™tant 
had rallied gallantly to the Queen ; and, for young Englishmen, 
the splendid struggle made Protestantism and patriotism seem 




Elizabeth as she went to a Thanks- 
giving Service at St. Paul's after the 
defeat of the Armada. 



164 THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 

much the same thing. The rising generation became largely 
Protestant; and before Elizabeth's death (1603) even the 
Puritan doctrines from Geneva and from Presbyterian Scotland 
had begun to spread widely among the people. 

Ireland, the third part of the British Isles, remained Catholic. 
Henry II (p. 78) had tried to conquer Ireland ; but, until the 
time of the Tudors, the English really held only a little strip 
of land ("the English Pale") near Dublin. The rest of Ireland 
remained in the hands of native chieftains. In the seventh and 
eighth centuries Irish schools had been the most famous in 
Europe ; but now constant war had rooted out the old begin- 
nings of Irish culture, and the Irish tribes were half barbarous. 

Henry VIII established English authority over most of the 
island and destroyed the monasteries, the chief remaining 
centers of industry and learning. Shortly before the Armada, 
Spain made attempts to use the island as a base from which 
to attack England. Alarmed to frenzy by this deadly peril 
at their back door, Elizabeth's generals then completed the 
military subjugation with atrocious cruelties. Tens of thou- 
sands of men, women, and children were killed, or perished of 
famine in the Irish bogs ; and great districts of the country 
were given to English nobles and gentry. Incessant feuds 
continued between the peasantry and these absentee landlords, 
and the Irish nation looked on the attempt to introduce the 
Church of England as a part of the hated English tyranny. 
As English patriotism became identified with Protestantism, 
so, even more completely, Irish patriotism became identified 
with Catholicism. 

Elizabeth's reign was part of a period of important change in 
industry which will be treated later (pp. 181 ff.). The reign is 
best known, however, for (1) the religious changes we have been 
tracing, and (2) for the " Elizabethcm Renaissance." 

Except for the "Oxford Reformers" (p. 134), England had 
lagged behind in the early Renaissance. But now it took a 
leading place. Edmund Spenser created a new form of English 



THE ELIZABETHAN RENAISSANCE 165 

poetry in his Faerie Queenc. And the splendor of the P^Hzabethan 
age found a climax in English drama, with Shakspere as the 
most resplendent star in a glorious galaxy that counted such 
other shining names as Marlowe, Greene, Beaumont, Fletcher, 
and Beji Janson. Not less splendid, possibly even more 
important, was the scientific progress of Harvey and Francis 
Bacon (p. 179). 

For Further Reading. — Green's History of the English People 
is the best general account for this period. Creighton's and Beesly's 
lives of Elizabeth are good short biographies. 



CHAPTER III 

A CENTURY OF RELIGIOUS "WARS 
SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS 

When Philip II succeeded his father (p. 145) as king of Spain 
and of the SiciUes, and master of the Netherlands, he was the 
most powerful and most absolute monarch in Europe. The 
Spanish infantry were the finest soldiery in the world. The 
Spanish navy was the unquestioned mistress of the ocean. 
Each year the great "gold fleet" filled Philip's coffers from 
the exhaustless wealth of the Americas. In 1580 the ruling 
family in Portugal died out, and that throne was seized by Philip 
— by virtue of a relationship to the extinct family.^ Thus 
Portugal's East India empire fell to Spain, and the Spanish 
boast that the sun never set upon Spanish dominions became 
literal fact. Philip himself was a plodding, cautious toiler, 
who worked like a clerk day after day in a bare room with a 
table and two stiff chairs. He was despotic, cruel, unscrupu- 
lous, ambitious, and an ardent Catholic. 

Charles V had disregarded the old liberties of the Netherlands 
(p. 125), and had set up the Inquisition in that country with 
frightful consequences. Protestant writers used to claim that 
from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand men and women 
were burned, strangled, or buried alive within the Netherlands 
during Charles' reign. These numbers appear to be mere 
guesses ; but the actual facts were horrible. Still the great 
majority of the people had been attached to Charles as their 
native sovereign, and had felt a warm loyalty to his government. 
Philip continued all his father's abuses, without possessing any 
of his redeeming qualities in Dutch eyes. He was a foreign 

1 Portugal reestablished her independence, by revolt, in 1640. 
166 



RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC 167 

master — not a Hollander by birth as Charles had been — 
and he ruled from a distance and through Spanish officers. 
Finally, Protestant and Catholic nobles joined in demands for 
reform and especially that they might be ruled by officers from 
their own people. 

Philip's reply was to send the stern Spanish general, Aha, Alva's 
with a veteran Spanish army, to enforce submission. Alva's f gj j 
council is known as the Council of Blood. It declared almost 
the whole population guilty of rebellion, and deserving of death 
with confiscation of goods. Alva proceeded to enforce this 
atrocious sentence by butchering great numbers — especially 
of the wealthy classes — and in 1568 a revolt began. 

The struggle between the little disunited provinces and the huge 
world-empire lasted forty years. In the beginning the conflict 
was for political liberty, but it soon became also a religious 
struggle. It was waged with an exasperated and relentless 
fury that made it a byword for ferocity even in that brutal 
age. City after city was given up to indiscriminate rapine 
and massacre, with deeds of horror indescribable. 

Over against this dark side stands the stubborn heroism of 
the Dutch people, hardly matched in history, — a heroism 
which saved not themselves only, but also the cause of Prot- 
estantism and of political liberty for the world, and made 
their little spot of sea-rescued land a true "holy land" to all 
who love freedom. 

William, Prince of Orange, was the central hero of the conflict. William 
Because he foiled his enemies so often by wisely keeping his plans °^ Orange 
to himself, he is known as William the Silent; and his persistency 
and statesmanship have fitly earned him the name "the Dutch 
Washington." Again and again, he seemed to be crushed; but 
from each defeat he snatched a new chance for victory. 

The turning point of the war ivasthe relief of Leyden (1574). The Relief 
For many months the city had been closely besieged. The Leyden 
people had devoured the cats and rats and were dying grimly 
of starvation. Once they murmured, but the heroic burgo- 
master (mayor) shamed them, declaring they might have his 



168 THE RELIGIOUS WARS 

body to eat, but while he Hved they should never surrender 
to the Spanish butchers. All attempts to relieve the perishing 
town had failed. But fifteen miles away, on the North Sea, 
rode a Dutch fleet with supplies. Then William the Silent cut 
the dikes and let in the ocean on the land. Over wide districts 
the prosperity of years was engulfed in ruin ; but the waves 
swept also over the Spanish camp, and upon the invading sea 
the relieving ships rode to the city gates. Dutch liberty was 
saved. 

In memory of its heroic resistance, William offered 
Leyden exemption from taxes or the establishment of a 
university. The citizens finely chose the latter;- and the 
University of Leyden, ever since one of the most famous 
universities in Europe, arose to commemorate the city's 
deed. 

Never again was Spain so near success, though the war lasted 
many years longer. In 1584, by a dastardly offer of immense 
reward, Philip II found an assassin to murder William the 
Silent ; but another great antagonist was just ready to enter 
the conflict. 
England Holland had been fighting England's battle as well as her 

aidsHoUand ^^^ . ^^^^ ^^^ Dutch war had kept Philip, from attacking 
England. Englishmen knew this ; and, for years, hundreds 
of English volunteers had been flocking to join the Dutch 
army. Elizabeth herself had many times helped the Dutch 
by secret supplies of money, and now in 1585 she sent a small 
English army to their aid. This was the immediate signal for 
the Spanish Armada ; and the overthrow of Spain's naval su- 
premacy by the splendid English sea dogs (p. 163) added tre- 
mendously to Holland's chances. True, the ten southern prov- 
inces of the old Netherlands finally gave up the struggle, and 
returned to Spanish allegiance. They were largely French 
in race and Catholic in religion. Protestantism was now com- 
pletely stamped out in them. After this time, they are known 
as the Spanish Netherlands, and finally as modern Belgium. 



RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC 



169 




THE IfETHERLANDS 

at the Truce of 1609 

SCALE OF MILES 

I 1 1 1 1 1 r I I 

10 20 30 40 60 60 70 80 

XhtAven United Provintet ^^- 

l%e iYovt'ncea Retained by Spain 



_P MvltSLAND 

\ j\_ • tmbden 



J 



/ 







170 



THE RELIGIOUS WARS 



Dutch 
Indepen- 
dence 



HoUand's 

splendid 

period 



The seven northern provinces, — - Dutch in blood and Prot- 
estant in religion, — maintained the conflict, and won their 
independence as The United Provinces, or the Dutch Republic 
— though that independence was not formally recognized by 
Catholic Europe for half a century more. The government 
consisted of a representative "States General" and a "Stadt- 
holder" (President). The most important of the seven prov- 
inces was Holland, b^^ whose name the union was often known. 

The most marvelous feature of the struggle between the little 
Dutch state and Spain was that Holland grew wealthy during 
the contest, although the stage of the desolating war. The 
Dutch drew their riches not from the wasted land, but from the 
sea ; and during the war they plundered the possessions of Spain 
in the East Indies. The little republic built up a vast colonial 
empire ; and, especially after Spain's naval supremacy had been 
engulfed with the Armada, the Dutch held almost a monopoly 
of the Asiatic trade for all Europe. One hundred thousand of 
their three million people lived constantly upon the sea. 

Success in so heroic a war stimulated the people to a wonder- 
ful intellectual and industrial activity. Holland taught all 
Europe scientific agriculture and horticulture, as well as the 
science of navigation. In the seventeenth century the presses 
of Holland are said to have put forth more books than all the 
rest of Europe. Motley sums up this wonderful career, — 

"The splendid empire of Charles V was erected upon the grave of 
liberty. . . . But from the hand-breadth of territory called Holland 
rises a power which wages eighty years' warfare ^ with the most potent 
empire upon the earth, and which, during the struggle, becomes itself a 
mighty state, and, binding about its slender form a zone of the richest 
possessions of the earth, from pole to tropic, finally dictates its decrees 
to the empire of Charles." 

On the other hand, Spain sank rapidly into a second-rate 
power. The bigot, Philip III, drove into exile the Christianized 
Moors, the descendants of those Mohammedans left behind 
when the Moorish political power had been driven out. They 

' Peace was not made, formally, until 1609. 



SPAIN'S DECAY 171 

• 

numbered more than half a miUion, — perhaps a twentieth of 

the entire population, — and they were the foremost agricul- 
turalists and almost the sole skilled artisans and manufacturers. 
Their pitiless expulsion inflicted a deadly blow upon the pros- 
perity of Spain. 

For a time the wealth she drew from America concealed her 
fall, and she continued to furnish money for the Catholic powers 
through the Thirty Years' War (p. 174). But after the Armada 
she never played a great part in Europe, and, living on the plunder 
of the New World, she failed to develop the industrial life which 
alone could furnish a true prosperity. Moreover, the In- 
quisition steadily " sifted out the most flexible minds and the 
stoutest hearts," until a once virile race sank into apathy and 
decay. 

One great service Spain had rendered Christendom just The Battle 
before England and Holland broke her power. For a genera- epanto 
tion, Turkish fleets, almost unchecked, had ravaged the Chris- 
tian coasts of the Mediterranean, even burning villages far 
inland and sweeping oft' the peasants into captivity. Cyprus 
had fallen before their attack, and Malta had been saved only 
by the heroic resistance of the Knights of St. John.^ Finally 
Spain, Venice, and the pope joined their naval strength, and in 
1571 the combined Christian fleet annihilated the great Turkish 
navy at Lepanto, on the Greek coast. Lepanto was the greatest 
naval battle the world had seen for eighteen hundred years — 
since the ancient wars between Romans and Carthaginians. 
Over six hundred ships engaged. The Turks lost thirty thou- 
sand men, and twelve thousand Christian rowers were freed 
from horrible slavery at the oar. The Turks never recovered 
naval importance, and indeed, the turning point of their power 
is often dated from this defeat. 

> Read Prescott's account of the siege of Malta in his Philip II, if avail- 
able. When driven from Asia, about 1300, the Knights of St. John (p. 93) 
removed to Rhodes and remained for centuries an outpost of Christendom 
in constant warfare with the Turk. Not long before Lepanto they had been 
expelled from Rhodes and had then fortified themselves anew upon the rocks 
of Malta. 



172 



THE RELIGIOUS WARS 



The Hugue- 
nots 



Guises and 
Bourbons 



The 

Massacre 
of Bartholo- 
mew 



WARS OF THE FRENCH HUGUEN01\S 

The French Protestants were Calvinists, and are known as 
Huguenots. By 1560, they counted one man out of twenty in 
the population ; and (because Calvinism appealed by its logic 
mainly to intellectual people) their numbers were made up 
almost wholly from the nobles and the wealthy middle class of 
the towns. Francis I and his son, Henry H, persecuted the 
new faith, but not continuously enough to crush it. 

Henry was followed by his three sons, — Francis H, Charles 
IX, and Henry III, — all weak in body and in mind. During 
their reigns (1559-1589.), power was disputed between two groups 
of great lords. Each was closely related to the failing royal 
family, and each hoped to place a successor upon the throne. 
One of these groups was the Catholic Guise family ; the other 
was the Protestant Bourbons, who counted as their leaders the 
King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde. In the background 
was the chief figure of all, the crafty and cruel Queen-mother, 
Catherine of Medici, who played off one party against the other 
in whatever way might best promote her own control over her 
feeble sons. 

War between the two factions opened in 1562 and lasted, with 
brief truces, to 1598. Even more than the other struggles of the 
period, it was marked by assassinations and treacheries, which 
struck down almost every leader on either side. The most 
horrible event of this character was the Massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew (August 24, 1572). 

An honest attempt had just been made to establish a lasting 
peace. A marriage had been arranged between the sister of 
King Charles IX and the young Henry, King of Navarre (a 
small border state on the south of France) ; and, too, the grand- 
est Frenchman of the age, the Protestant Coligny, became one 
of Charles' chief counselors, and soon won remarkable influence 
over him. But Catherine of Medici had not expected to see 
her own power over her son so superseded, and now she joined 
the Guises in secret attacks upon Coligny. 

An attempt to assassinate Coligny failed, and the king 



THE HUGUENOTS 173 

threatened vengeance for the attack. Then the conspirators, 
to save themselves, played upon his religious bigotry with a 
plot to cleanse France from heresy at one blow ; and his con- 
sent was finally won for a general massacre of the Huguenots. 
Large numbers of that sect were assembled in Paris to witness 
the marriage of their chief ; and at the appointed moment, the 
mob of Paris bathed in Huguenot blood. Ten thousand victims 
fell in France. 

Henry of Navarre escaped from the massacre, and, on the death Henry of 
of the French king, in 1589, he was the heir to the throne. But Navarre 
he did not become king of France, as Henry IV, until after four 
years more of civil war with the Catholic League. 

Philip II of Spain aided the League. He hoped to seat a 
puppet on the French throne and virtually add that country 
to the realms of Spain. But in Henry of Navarre he met the 
third of the three great leaders on whom his imperial schemes 
went to wreck. Henry drove the Spanish army in shameful 
rout from France in the dashing cavalry battle of Ivry. Then, 
to secure Paris, which he had long besieged, he accepted Ca- Becomes 
tholicism, declaring lightly that " so fair a city" was " well worth Henry IV 
a mass." His purpose, of course, was not only to secure the 
capital, but also to give peace to his distracted country. 

In 1598 Henry's Edict of Nantes established toleration for Edicts 
the Huguenots. (1) They were granted full equality before the °* Nantes 
law. Before this, the forms of oaths required in law courts had 
been such as a Protestant could not take, and therefore a 
Huguenot could not sue to recover property. (2) They were to 
have perfect liberty of conscience in private, and to enjoy the 
privilege of public worship except in the cathedral cities. And 
(3) certain towns were handed over to them, to hold with their 
own garrisons, as a security for their rights. This last measure 
was no doubt needful, but it carried with it a political danger : 
it set up a state within a state, and hindered the unity of France. 

Henry IV proved one of the greatest of French kings, and he Henry 
was one of the most loved. With his sagacious minister, the |°^ 
Duke of Sully, he set himself to restore prosperity to desolated 



174 



THE RELIGIOUS WARS 



Cardinal 
Richelieu 



France. One of his treasured sayings was, that if he lived, 
the poorest peasant should have a fowl in the pot on a Sunday. 
Roads and canals were built ; new trades were fostered ; and 
under the blessings of a firm government, the industry of the 
French people once more with marvelous rapidity removed the 
evil results of the long strife. In 1610 Henry was assassinated 
by a half-insane Catholic fanatic. 

Henry's son, Louis XHI, was a boy of nine years. Anarchy 
again raised its head ; but France was saved by the commanding 
genius of Cardinal Richelieu, who became the chief minister of 
the young king. Richelieu was a sincere patriot, and, though an 
earnest Catholic, his statesmanship was guided by political, not 
by religious, motives. He crushed the great nobles and he 
waged war upon the Huguenots to deprive them of their gar- 
risoned towns, which menaced the unity of France. But when 
he had captured their cities and held the Huguenots at his 
mercy, he kept toward them in full the other pledges of the 
Edict of Nantes. He aided the German Protestants against the 
Catholic emperor, in the religious war that was going on in 
Germany, and so secured a chance to seize territory from the 
Empire for France. To make the king supreme in France, 
he waged war against the Protestants within the nation : to 
make France supreme in Europe, he waged war for the Protes- 
tants of Germany. 



THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR IN GERMANY ri618-1648) 

Conditions Fortunately for German Protestants, the two immediate 

'° ^^f^^^'^y successors of Charles V on the imperial throne were liberal in 

after the .... 

Peace of temper, disinclined either to persecution or to religious war. 

Augsburg gQ £qj. sixty years after the Peace of Augsburg (p. 144), the new 
faith gained ground rapidly. It spread over much of South 
Germany and held almost complete possession of Bohemia, 
the home of the ancient Hussite reform. Strife was incessantly 
threatening, however. The Hapsburgs strove to restrict Prot- 
estantism in their dominions, while the Protestant princes 
systematically evaded the promise to restore church lands. 



THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 175 

This period of uneasy peace in Germany is just the period 
of the religious wars in the Netherlands and in France. Then, 
in 1618, the last of the great religious wars came in Germany — 
a century after Luther posted his theses at Wittenberg. It is 
known as the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), and it was the most 
destructive and terrible war in all history until the World War. 

The signal for the struggle was an attempt of Protestant Bohemia 
Bohemia to make itself independent of the Catholic Hapsburg ^^^^^^ 
Empire. Bohemian independence lasted only a few weeks ; 
but this was long enough to call all Germany into two armed 
camps. The Protestant German princes, however, showed them- 
selves disunited, timid, and incapable ; and, had the war been 
left to Germany, a Catholic victory would soon have been 
assured. But all over Europe sincere and religious Protestants 
felt deeply and truly that the war against the Catholic Hapsburgs 
was their own war — much as all free peoples have felt in the 
World War when liberty was imperiled by Hohenzollern autoc- 
racy. First Denmark (1625-1629) and then Sweden (1630) 
entered the field in behalf of the Protestant cause ; and at last 
(1635-1648) Catholic France under Richelieu threw its weight 
also against the Hapsburgs who so long had ringed France about 
with hostile arms. 

The war was marked by the careers of four great generals, — Walienstein 
Tilly and Walienstein on the imperial side, and Gustavns q 
Adolphus, king of Sweden, "the Lion of the North," and Mans- Adolphus 
feld, on the side of the Protestants. Gustavus was at once 
great and admirable ; but he fell at the battle of Liitzen (1632), 
in the moment of victory ; and thereafter .the struggle was as 
dreary as it was terrible. Mansfeld and Walienstein from 
the first deliberately adopted the policy of making the war pay, 
by supporting their armies everywhere upon the country; but 
during the short career of Gustavus, his blond Swede giants 
were held in admirable discipline, with the nearest approach to a 
regular commissariat that had been known since Roman times. 

Gustavus' success, too, was due largely to new tactics. 
Muskets, fired by a "match" and discharged from a "rest," 



176 



THE RELIGIOUS WARS 



Devastation 
of Germany 



Peace of 
Westphalia 



had become an important portion of every army ; but troops 
were still massed in the old fashion that had prevailed when 
pikemen were the chief infantry. Gustavus was the first 
general to adapt the arrangement of his troops to the new 
weapons. 

The calamities the war brought were monstrous. It was a 
blasting ruin, from which Germany had not fully recovered in 
the middle of the nineteenth century. Season by season, for a 
generation of human life, armies of ruthless freebooters harried 
the land with fire and sword. The peasant found that he toiled 
only to feed robbers and to draw them to outrage and torture 
his family ; so he ceased to labor, and became himself robber or 
camp-follower. Half the population and two thirds the movable 
property of Germany were swept away. In many large districts, 
the facts were worse than this average. The Duchy of Wurtem- 
berg had fifty thousand people left out of five hundred thousand. 
In Bohemia, thirty thousand happy villages had shrunk to 
six thousand miserable ones, and the rich promise of the great 
University of Prague was ruined. Everywhere populous cities 
shriveled into hamlets ; and for miles upon miles, former ham- 
lets were the lairs of wolf packs. Not until 1850 did some 
sections of Germany again contain as many homesteads and 
cattle as in 1618. 

Even more destructive was the result upon industry and 
character. Whole trades, with their long-inherited skill, 
passed from the memory of men.^ Land tilled for centuries 
became wilderness. And men became savages. The genera- 
tion that survived the war came to manhood without schools 
or churches or law or orderly industry. 

The war was closed by the Peace of Westphalia. This treaty 
was drawn up by a congress of ambassadors from nearly every 
European power. It contained three distinct classes of stipu- 
lations : provisions for religious peace in Germany ; territorial 



> An instance of this is the wonderful old German wood carving. A 
genuine old piece of German cabinetwork is easily placed before 1618, 
because the war simply wiped out the skill and the industry. 



t 















PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 177 

rewards for France and Sweden ; and provisions to secure the 
independence of the German princes against the Empire. 

1. The principle of the Peace of Augsburg was reaffirmed and 
extended. Each sovereign prince in Germany was to choose his 
reUgion ; and his subjects were to have three years to conform 
to his choice or to withdraw from his realm. 

Many of the South German Protestants were then driven 
into exile by their Catholic lords. This was the first cause 
of the coming to America of the "Pennsylvania Dutch." 
Most of the German immigration to America before the 
Revolution was connected with this expulsion or with the 
devastation of the Rhine provinces a little later by Louis 
XIV of France (p. 232)-. 

2. Sweden, which was already a great Baltic power, extend- 
ing around both the east and west shores of that sea (p. 55), 
secured also much of the south coast : Pomerania — with the 
mouths of the Oder, Elbe, and Weser — was the payment she 
received for her part in the war. This gave Sweden control 
over German commerce. France annexed most of Alsace, with, 
some fortresses on the German bank of the Rhine. The Con- 
gress also expressly recognized the independence of Switzerland 
and of the Dutch Provinces. 

3. The Empire lost more than mere territory. Various 
political rearrangements within Germany made clear its weakness. 
The separate states were given the right to form alliances with 
one another or even with foreign powers. The imperial Diet 
became avowedly a gathering of ambassadors for discussion, but 
not for government : no state was to be bound by decisions there 
without its own consent. 

The religious wars filled a century — from the struggle between Conditions 
the German princes and Charles V (1546) to the Peace of West- Jj *« ^^« 
phalia (1648). They left the Romance^ South Catholic, and the UgiousWars 

' Romance is a term applied to those European peoples and languages 
closely related to the old Roman rule — like the Italians, Spanish, and 
French. 



178 



THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS WARS 



Teutonic North Protestant. Politically, France emerged, under 
the Bourbon branch of the Capetians, stronger and more united 
than ever, quite equal in power to any two states of Europe. 
England and Sweden had both risen into "Great Powers." 
Two new federal republics had been added to the European 
family of nations, — Switzerland and the United Provinces ; 
and the second of these was one of the leading "Powers." The 
danger of a universal Hapsburg empire was forever gone. 
Spain, the property of one Hapsburg branch, had sunk from 
the first place in Europe to a third-rate power. The Holy 
Roman Empire, the realm of the other branch, was an open 
sham. Far to the east loomed indistinctly a huge and grow- 
ing Russian state. 



This age of wars and persecution in religion, almost without 
notice at the time, was also an age of advance in science, 
which was to change the life of men and women more than the 
wars of Wallenstein and Gustavus. Indeed it was just at this 
time that what we call the scientific method of investigation and 
experiment was really born into the world. 

All men had believed the earth the center of the universe, 
with sun and stars revolving around it. But in 1543 a Polish 
astronomer, Copernicus, published a book proving that the 
earth was only one member of a solar system which had the 
sun for a center. This discovery did more than revolutionize 
astronomy : it revolutionized thought about man's place in the 
world, by opening up such immensities of worlds and such 
possibilities of other forms of life as had never before been 
dreamed of. Columbus, half a century before, had discovered 
a "New World" : Copernicus revealed a new universe. 

From fear of persecution, Copernicus had kept his discovery 
to himself for many years — - until just before his death, when 
the "religious wars" were just beginning. Those wars them- 
selves checked study and discovery in parts of Europe ; and 
persecution, for a while, repressed scientific discoveries in 
Catholic countries. At the opening of the Renaissance (p. 118) 



PROGRESS IN SCIENCE 179 

the popes had been the foremost patrons of the new learning ; 
•but now the reaction against the Protestant revolt had thrown 
control into conservative hands, and the church used its tre- 
mendous powers to stifle new scientific discoveries. 

Still much was done. In Elizabeth's day in England, the Harvey 
physician, William Harvey, rediscovered the circulation of the ^^^^j^^y. 
blood (p. 148) and so made possible modern medicine. And in lation of 
Italy Galileo discovered the laws of falling bodies and of the 
pendulum (as they are now taught in our textbooks on physics), 
invented the thermometer, and, taking a hint from a Dutch 
plaything, constructed the first real telescope. With this, in 
1610, he demonstrated the truth of Copernicus' teachings by 
showing the "phases" of the planet Venus in its revolution Galileo 
about the sun. True, Galileo was summoned to Rome by 
the pope, imprisoned, and forced publicly to recant his teaching 
that the earth moved around the sun ; but, as he rose from his 
knees, he whispered to a friend — " None the less, it does 
move." 

And more important than any specific discovery about The 
sun or the human body was the discovery of a new way of ^pgriment 
finding out truth about the world. For centuries scholars 
had tried to learn only by reading ancient authorities, and per- 
haps by reasoning a little further, in their own minds, upon 
what these authorities taught. But the new discoveries had 
been made in another way ; and now, Francis Bacon, in Eng- 
land, set forth eloquently the necessity of experiment to discover 
new facts. And before 1700, in Italy, France, and England, 
great scientific societies were founded, to encourage scientific 
investigation. 

Still for more than a century, these new discoveries reached 
a very small part of even the most enlightened nations. The 
average Puritan, for instance, who settled Massachusetts, 
twenty years after Galileo, believed the earth a flat surface 
lighted by sun and stars that moved around it. Francis Bacon 
himself, almost a century after Copernicus, never knew that the 
earth revolved around the sun ; and, Englishman though he was, 



180 THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS WARS 

he had never heard of Harvey's discoveries — and beHeved that 
an ape's heart, worn on a man's breast, would make him brave. * 
A new truth, in those times, did not get the world's attention 
in a day. 

For Further Reading. — England is covered by previous refer- 
ences. It is not worth while for the student to read on the Wars, except 
for some brilliant story like Willert's Henry of Navarre, and for Holland. 
For that country, see The Student's Motley, an admirable and brief con- 
densation of Motley's great history of the Dutch Repubhc. Source I 
material can be found in Robinson's Readings. 

EXERCISES 

1. Dates for rapid drill : 1520, 1588, 1648. 

2. Review the Reformation as a whole in each country to the close of 
the rehgious wars. 



PART II 

ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH OENTUKY 



CHAPTER IV 

ENGLISH INDUSTRY IN 1600 

The century and a half from 1450 to 1600 (filled in England Changes in 
by the Wars of the Roses and the Tudor reigns) was a period ^^^^t.' 
of tremendous change, intellectual, religious, political, and 
economic. 

(1) The Renaissance created a new intellectual life, with 
the spontaneous energy and the abounding self-reliance that 
we associate with the names of Shakespere and Elizabeth and 
Raleigh. 

(2) The reformation introduced new church organization 
and new religious feeling. 

(3) On the ruins of the two chief political forces of earlier 
times, — feudalism and the church, — the sovereigns built 
up a "New Monarchy" (p. 113). 

(4) Industry was revolutionized in town and country. 

The first three changes have been treated. The industrial 
change was the most fundamental of all. It has been referred 
to several times and we will now look at it as a whole. 

The golden age for English peasants was the half century The change 
from 1450 to 1500, just after the disappearance of villeinage. Ji^^^^^^^ 
The small farmer lived in rude abundance ; and even the farm industry 
laborer had his cow, sheep, or geese on the common, his four- 
acre patch of garden about his cabin, and good wages for his 
labor on the landlord's fields. Sir John Fortescue (p. 112) 
boasts of this prosperity, as compared with that of the French 
peasantry : " They [English peasants] drink no water, unless 

181 



182 ENGLAND IN 1600 

at times by way of penance. They are fed in great abundance 
with all kinds of flesh and fish. They are clothed in good 
woolens. ... Every one, according to his rank, hath ' all 
things needful to make life easy and happy." 

The large landlords had been relatively less prosperous. 
Since the rise of their old laborers out of villeinage, they were 
"land-poor." They paid high wages, while, under the waste- 
ful common-field system, crops were small (p. 68). 

But by 1500 a change had begun which enriched the land- 
lords and cruelly depressed the peasants. This change was the 
process of "inclosures" for sheep raising. There was a steady 
demand for wool at good prices to supply the Flemish markets 
(p. 124), and enterprising landlords began .to raise sheep instead 
of grain. Large flocks could be cared for by a few hands, so 
that the high wages mattered less ; and profits proved so en- 
ticing that soon there was a mad rush into the new industry. 

But sheep-raising called for large tracts of land. It was pos- 
sible only for the great landlords ; and even these were obliged 
to hedge in their share of the common "fields." Therefore, 
as far as possible, they turned out small tenants whose holdings 
interfered with such "inclosures," and often they inclosed also 
the woodlands and meadows, in disregard of ancient rights of 
common pasture. Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia (p. 134), 
lamented these conditions bitterly : 

"A careless and unsatiable cormorant may compass about and 
inclose many thousand acres within one pale, and the husbandmen be 
thrust out of their own ; or else by fraud, or violent oppression, or by 
wrongs and injuries, they be so worried that they be compelled to sell. . . . 
They [the landlords] throw down houses ; they pluck down towns [vil- 
lages], and leave nothing standing but only the church, to be made a 
sheep-house." 

Then More gives this piteous picture of the peasants who 
have been driven from their homes : 

"By one means or another, either by hook or by crook, they must 
needs depart, poor wretched souls — men, women, husbands, wives, 
fatherless children, widows, woeful mothers with young babes. . . . All 



the free 
farmers 



DECAY OF THE YEOMANRY 183 

their household stuff . . . suddenly thrust out, they be constrained to 
sell it for a thing of nought. And when they have wandered till that be 
spent, what can they then else do but steal, and then justly, pardy, be 
hanged, or else go about begging? And yet then also they be cast into 
prison as vagabonds, because they go about and work not, — whom no 
man will set to work though they never so willingly proffer themselves 
thereto." 

Other statesmen, too, bewailed that sheep should take the Passing of 
place of the yeomanry who had won Crecy and Poitiers, and 
who, Bacon said, were also "the backbone of the revenue"; 
and the government made many attempts to check inclosures. 
But law availed nothing. Nor did peasant risings and riots 
(p. 155) help. On the other hand, Henry VIII's transfer 
of monastery lands (a fifth of England) to greedy private land- 
lords increased the inclosure movement tremendously; and it 
went on until the profits of sheep-raising and grain-raising 
found a natural level ■ 

This came to pass before 1600. The wool market was sup- 
plied, and the growth of town populations raised the price of 
grain. These towns, as we shall explain (p. 184), became the 
basis for a new sort of prosperity for England, and the land 
changes created a wealthy landed gentry, to take a glittering 
part in society and politics. 

But this new "prosperity" had a somber background. Half 
of the villages in England had lost heavily in population, and 
many had been wholly swept away. Great numbers of the 
peasants, driven from their homes, became "sturdy beggars" 
(tramps) ; and all laborers were thrust down to a lower standard 
of life, because the cost of food and clothing rose twice as fast 
as wages. 

More than before even, rural England had become a land- 
lord's country. One reason why wages stayed so low was that 
the gentleman "justices of the peace," appointed by the crown, 
were given power to fix wages for farm work. And when tramps 
spread terror through the rural districts, the justices hung them 
in batches. In fifty years, in the glorious day of Shakespere 
and Elizabeth, seventy thousand "beggars" were executed. 



184 



ENGLAND IN 1600 



Growth of 
manu- 
factures 



And of 
commerce 



These conditions explain in part why so many English- 
men were eager to go to America. John Winthrop, the 
great Puritan leader of the Massachu'Setts colony (himself 
from the prosperous landlord class), declared "England 
grows weary of her inhabitants, so as man who is the most 
precious of God's creatures, is here more vile and base 
than the earth we tread upon and of less prize among us 
than a horse or an ox." 

Meantime, England was becoming a manufacturing country. 
From the time of the Yorkist kings, the sovereigns had made 
the towns their special care. Elizabeth welcomed gladly the 
skilled workmen driven from the Netherlands by the Spanish 
wars, and from France by the persecution of the Huguenots. 
Colonies of these foreign artisans were given their special 
quarter in many an English city, with many favors, and were 
encouraged to set up there their manufactures, of which Eng- 
land had previously known almost nothing. Soon, English 
wool was no longer sold abroad. It was worked up at home. 
These new manufactures gave employment to great numbers 
of workmen, and finally absorbed the classes driven from 
the land. 

This manufacturing fostered commerce. By 1600, England 
was sending, not merely raw materials as formerly, but her 
finished products, to distant markets. "Merchants"^ in- 
creased in wealth and in numbers, so as to form a new class in 
society. In 1350 a royal inquiry could find a list of only 169 
important merchants in England. In 1601 more than twenty 
times that number were engaged in the Holland trade alone. 

By purchase of land and by royal gifts from the confiscated 
church property, the members of this class rose into the new 
gentry, and their capital and energy helped to restore prosperity 
to the land. 

' A "merchant" was a trader who sent goods to a foreign country. Com- 
panies were formed to trade with Russia, or India, or other distant parts of 
the world : and sometimes a single merchant owned a considerable fleet of 
ships for such trade (cf. Shakespere's Antonio, in The Merchant of Venice). 



GROWTH OF COMMERCE 185 

The rapid growth of manufactures brought with it a change The 
in the position of the workers. The old gild s^/^stem broke "I'o^ostic 
down in England and was replaced by the so-called "domestic 
system" of manufacturing. The work was still carried on by 
hand, and mostly in the master's house; but the masters de- 
manded and finally secured liberty from gild control. This 
greater freedom permitted the more rapid introduction of im- 
proved methods. 



CHAPTER V 



PURITAN ENGLAND — UNDER THE FIRST STUARTS 



The English 
Church in 
1600 



Puritanism 



" Low- 
church " 
non-con- 
formists 



At every moment some one country, more than any other, represents the 
future and the welfare of mankind. — Emerson. 

For two generations after 1600, the burning questions in Eng- 
lish politics and religion had to do with Puritanism. Within the 
established Episcopal church the dominant party had strong 
"High-church" leanings. It wished to restore so far as 
possible the ceremonial of the old Catholic church, and it 
taught that the government of the church by bishops had been 
directly ordained by God. This party was ardently supported 
by the royal "head of the church" — Elizabeth, James, Charles, 
in turn ; but it was engaged in constant struggle with a large, 
aggressive Puritan party. 

Puritanism was much more than a religious sect. It was an 
ardent aspiration for reform in many lines. In politics it stood 
for an advance in popular rights ; in conduct, for stricter and 
higher morality ; in theology, for the stern doctrines of Calvin ; 
in church matters, for an extension of the "reformation" that 
had cut off the English church from Rome. 

Two groups of Puritans stood in sharp opposition to each 
other, — the influential "Low-church" element within the 
church, and the despised Separatists outside of it. The Low- 
churchmen had no wish to separate church and state. They 
wanted one national church — a Low-church church — to which 
everybody within England should be forced to conform. They 
desired also to make the church a more far-reaching moral 
power. To that end, they aimed to introduce more preaching 
into the service, to simplify ceremonies, and to abolish alto- 
gether certain customs which they called "Romish," — the 

186 



LOW-CHURCH AND SEPARATISTS 187 

use of the surplice, and of the ring in marriage, of the sign of 
the cross in baptism, and (some of them) of the prayer-book. 
Most of them did not care as yet to change radically the estab- 
lished form of church government; but they looked upon all 
church machinery not as divinely instituted, as the High- 
churchmen did, but as of human origin. Some of them had 
begun, indeed, to speak with scant respect of bishops, and there 
was a subdivision among them inclined to the Presbyterian church 
government, as it existed in Scotland. It is this large Low- 
church branch of Puritanism with which in the seventeenth 
century English history is mainly concerned. 

The Independents (or "Puritans of the Separation") believed The 
that there should be no national church, but that each local Separatists 
religious organization should be a little democratic society, 
wholly separate from the civil government, and even independent 
of other churches. These Independents were the Puritans of 
the Puritans. They were the germs of later Congregation- 
alism. To all other sects they seemed mere anarchists in 
religion. Elizabeth persecuted them savagely, and her suc- 
cessor continued that policy. Some of the Independent churches 
fled to Holland ; and one of them, from Scrooby in northern 
England, after staying several years at Leyden, founded Plym- 
outh in America (the "Pilgrims" of 1620), — and so pointed 
the way for the larger Low-church emigration to Massachusetts 
Bay ten years later. 

Political liberty in England had fallen low under the Tudors. Political 

True, no law could be made without consent of Parliament, poJ^^itions 

m looo 
and that body controlled all new grants of money. But the 

monarch (or his ministers) prepared nearly all measures that 

came before Parliament ; he could veto any act of Parliament ; 

and, after a law had been made, he sometimes nullified it by 

special proclamations. Moreover, the monarch had so many 

ways of injuring a private man that it was extremely hazardous 

for any one persistently to oppose him. 

But, after all, Henry VIII and Elizabeth had ruled absolutely, 

only because they made u^e of cmistitutional forms (p. 113) and 



188 



PURITAN ENGLAND 



because they possessed a shrewd tact which taught them just 
where to stop. Moreover, toward the close of Ehzabeth's 
reign, when foreign perils were past, the tone of Parliament began 
to rise again. Men spoke boldly of checks upon the royal 
power; and Parliament and the courts forced the great queen 
to give up her pet practice of granting trade monopolies to 
her favorites. It was plain to keen observers that only the 
reverence for Elizabeth's age and sex, and the gratitude due 
her for her great services to the kingdom, held off an open 
clash between sovereign and Parliament. Upon her death, 
the clash began, — to last eighty -five years. 

Elizabeth was succeeded by James I (James Stuart), already 
king of Scotland (footnote, p. 153). James was learned and 
conceited, — "the wisest fool in Christendom," as Henry IV 
of France called him. He believed sincerely in the "divine 
right" of kings. That is, he believed that the king, as God's 
anointed, was the source of law and could not himself be con- 
trolled by law. He wrote a pompous and tiresome book to 
prove this. He and his son after him not only practiced ab- 
solutism, but they also preached it on every occasion. They 
were despots on principle. 

The nation had been growing restive under the cloaked, 
beneficent, elastic tyranny of the strong Tudors : naturally 
it rose in fierce opposition against the noisy, needless, and un- 
compromising tyranny of the weak Stuarts. From 1603, when 
the first James mounted the throne, until 1688, when his grand- 
son, the second James, ignominiously ran away from it, Eng- 
land was engaged in strife between this "divine right" of kings 
and the right of the people. 

Through all that seventeenth century, too, this little patch 
of land was the last remaining battle ground for liberty. In 
all other important states, — in Spain, in France, in Austria, 
in the Scandinavian lands, in the petty principalities of Ger- 
many and Italy, — despotism was supreme. In England both 
sides recognized this fact. Said the second Stuart king, Charles 
I, in a crisis of his reign, "I am ashamed that my cousins of 



THE "DIVINE RIGHT" OF KINGS 189 

France and Spain should have completed what I have scarce 
begun." And at the same time a patriot exclaimed in ex- 
hortation to his party, "England is the last country which 
retains her ancient liberties ; let them not perish now." 

The student should note, at this point, that the doctrine 
and practice of "divine-right" autocracy, ivhich England 
never accepted, remained dominant on the continent of 
Europe until less than a hundred years ago, and that it 
has disappeared from Germany only with the World War. 
Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, about 1900, repeatedly 
stated the doctrine in words strangely like those of James 
in England three centuries before — and Germany accepted 
them with applause. 

There were, as yet, no organized political parties. But there 
was a "court party," devoted to the royal power, consisting of 
most of the nobles and of the " High-church " clergy, and an 
opposition "country pai-ty," consisting of the mass of country 
gentry, some Puritan nobles, and the Puritan element generally. 

Noiv the issue between the two was promptly stated. In the 
first few weeks of his new sovereignty, James gave several 
practical proofs of his disregard for law and of his arbitrary 
temper. On his royal entry from Scotland, he ordered a thief 
to be hanged without trial; and when he summoned his first 
parliament he commanded that contested elections should be 
settled, not by Parliament as formerly, but by his courts. And 
then, in a famous utterance, he summed up his theory: "As 
it is atheism and blasphemy in a creature to dispute what God 
can do, so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to 
question what a king can do." This became the tone of the 
court party. 

When Parliament assembled, it took the first chance to an- Struggle 
swer these new claims. The king, as usual, opened Parlia- jame^^land 
ment with a "speech from the throne." As usual, the Speaker Parliament 
of the Commons replied ; but, in place of the usual thanks to 
his majesty, he reminded James bluntly of his limited powers. 



190 PURITAN ENGLAND 

"New laws," said the Speaker, "cannot be instituted, nor im- 
perfect laws reformed ... by any other power than this high 
court of Parliament." The Commons backed up this speech 
by a long paper, setting forth popular rights in detail and as- 
serting that the privileges of Englishmen were their inheritance 
"no less than their lands and goods." 

James seldom called Parliaments after this, and only when 
he had to have money. Whenever he did, there teas ivrangling 
between Parliament and king. 

Fortunately, the regular royal revenues had never been 
much increased, while the rise in prices and the wider duties 
of government called for more money than in former times. 
Both Elizabeth and James ivere poor. Elizabeth, however, had 
been economical and thrifty. James was careless and waste- 
ful, and could not get along without new taxes. 

Thus Parliament was able to hold its own. It insisted stub- 
bornly on its control of taxation, on freedom of speech, and on 
its right to impeach the king's ministers. In the Parliament 
of 1621, the Commons expressed dissatisfaction with a mar- 
riage that James had planned for his son Charles with a Span- 
ish princess. James roughly forbade them to discuss such 
"high matters of state." "Let us resort to our prayers," said 
one of the members, "and then consider this great business." 
The outcome of the consideration was a resolution, " (1) that 
the liberties, privileges," and jurisdictions of Parliament are 
the ancient and undoubted birthright of the subjects of England ; 
and (2) that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the king, 
the state, the church, the defense of the realm, the making and 
maintenance of laws, and the redress of grievances, which happen 
daily within this realm, are proper subjects for debate in Parlia- 
ment; and (3) that in the handling and proceeding of those 
businesses, every member of the Commons . . . has freedom of 
speech ... to bring to conclusion the same." 

James tore out this page of the records and dissolved Parlia- 
ment. But Charles was personally insulted by the Spanish 
court, where he had gone to visit the princess ; and in the 



SIR JOHN ELIOT 191 

last year of James' life the prince succeeded in forcing him into 

war with Spain — to the boundless joy of the nation. 

In March, 1625, in the midst of shame and disgrace because of The early 

mismanagement of the war, James died. In May, Charles I Parliaments 
1 . „ , . , . . of Charles I 

met his first Parliament. He quarreled with it at once, dissolved 

it, and turned to an eager prosecution of the war, trusting to 

win the nation to his side by glorious victory. Ignominious 

failure, instead, forced him to meet his second Parliament in 

1626. 

It is now that Sir John Eliot stands forth as leader of the 

patriots. Eliot is the "first great Commoner." In her earlier 

struggles with her kings, England had depended upon nobles 

for leaders. The Tudor monarchs had begun to use members 

from the rising gentry as ministers of the crown. Now one of 

this class was to lead the opposition to the crown. 

The significance of this lay not merely in the greater 
liberality of thought among the gentry, as compared with 
the nobles, but even more in their greater numbers. In 
earlier struggles, when a popular leader fell, like Simon of 
Montfort, there was no one to take his place, and the cause 
fell. But in this seventeenth century, an Eliot, a Hampden, 
a Pym, each found, at need, a worthy successor, or group 
of successors, to take up the work. 

Eliot was a Cornish gentleman, thirty-three years of age, Sir John 
courtly in manner, ardent and poetic in temper. His mind ^^°* 
was enriched by all the culture of the "New Learning," and 
afterward in weary years of imprisonment he found consola- 
tion in his Tacitus, Livy, Epictetus, and Seneca. He was an 
athlete and a courtier, and at the same time a deeply religious 
Puritan ; but his mind was never tinged with the somber feeling 
of later Puritanism. 

Eliot stood for the control of the king's ministers by Parlia- And the 
ment. Everything else, he saw, was likely to prove worthless, . .,^®^^?"^'" 
if the executive could not be held responsible. The king's the king's 
person could not be so held, except by revolution, but his niin- "^'"^ters 



192 PURITAN ENGLAND 

istcrs might be impeached ; and, under fear of this, they might 
be held in control. So Eliot persuaded the Commons to im- 
peach the Duke of Buckingham, the king's favorite and the 
instrument of much past tyranny under James. Charles 
stopped the proceedings by casting Eliot into prison — in plain 
defiance of parliamentary privileges — and dissolving Parlia- 
ment. 

The king fell back upon "benevolences" to raise a revenue. 
This was a device that originated during the Wars of the Roses 
two centuries before. During those long struggles. Parliament 
could not meet regularly and taxes could not be collected. 
A king had to depend therefore, for long intervals, not upon 
parliamentary taxes, but upon "good-will" gifts {benevolences) 
from men of wealth in his party. The first king after the war, 
the Yorkist Edward IV, continued from choice to collect benev- 
olences as he met rich men in his progresses through the 
kingdom ; and the first Tudor, Henry VII, reduced the thing to 
a system. Through his minister, Morton, he sent out written 
demands to rich men over all England.^ 

England deeply resented this method of "supply," because 
thereby a king was plainly made independent of parliamentary 
control. And so the young Henry VIII at his accession, 
despot as he was, sought popularity by formally giving up the 
evil practice and even handing over Morton, the tool of his 
father's extortion, for execution. 

Now, a century later, Charles revived the evil practice, and 
had his sheriffs in the county courts ask benevolences from all 
taxpayers. But county after county refused to give a penny, 
often with cheers for Parliament. Some sheriffs refused to 
a^k for the "free gift." The County of Cornwall (Sir John 

1 To some Morton said that their luxurious living showed that they were 
easily able to supply their king's needs ; to others, that their economy of 
life proved that they must have saved wherewith to aid their sovereign. 
Thus every man of consequence found himself impaled, the people said, on 
one prong or the other of " Morton's Fork." Perhaps the most important 
point of this story is that it reminds us of the recent introduction of forks 
{two pronged instruments) at table. Cf. p. 71. 



CHARLES I AND "BENEVOLENCES" 193 

Eliot's county) answered "that if they had but two kine, they 
would sell one to supply his majesty, — in a parliamentary way." 

Then Charles tried a "forced loan." This was really a tax The 
levied by the usual tax machinery, — a tax thinly disguised j ^?, 
by the false royal promise to repay it. The king's party used 
both force and persuasion. Pulpits, manned now by the anti- 
Puritan party, rang with the cry that to resist the king was 
eternal damnation. As a patriot of the time put it, the " High- 
church" clergy "improved the highwayman's formula into 
'Your money or your life eternal.^" 

And Charles made use of more immediate penalties. Poor England 
freeholders who refused to pay were "pressed" into the navy, "^'^ ^ 
or a turbulent soldiery was quartered in their defenseless 
homes ; and two hundred English gentlemen were confined 
in disgraceful prisons, to subdue their obstinacy. One young 
squire, John Hampden, who had based his refusal to pay 
upon a clause in Magna Carta, was rewarded with so close 
an imprisonment that, his kinsman tells us, "he never did 
look the same man after." Equal heroism was shown by hun- 
dreds of unknown men. George RadcliflPe wrote from his 
prison to his "right dear and loving wife" (who was eager 
to have him submit in time to have Christmas with her), 
"Shall it be thought I prejudice the public cause by hegin- 
ning to conform, which none yet hath done of all that have 
been committed [imprisoned], save only two poor men, a 
butcher and another, — and they, hooted at like oivls among 
their neighbors .'" 

The forced loan raised little revenue; and with an armament Parliament 
poorly fitted out, Buckingham sailed against France, with ° ^ ^ 
which his blundering poHcy had brought England into war. 
For the third time in four years an English army was wasted 
to no purpose ; and, sunk in debt and shame, Charles met his 
third Parliament in 1628. Before the elections, the imprisoned 
country gentlemen were released, and some seventy of them (all 
who appeared as candidates) sat in the new Parliament, in spite 
of the royal efforts to prevent their election. 



194 



PURITAN ENGLAND 



Charles asked for money. Instead of giving it, the Com- 
mons debated the recent infringements of English liberties 
and some way to provide security in future. The king offered 
to give his word that such things should not occur again, but 
was reminded that he had already given his oath at his coro- 
nation. Finally the House passed " the Petition of Right," a 

document that ranks with 
Magna Carta in the history 
of English liberty. This 
great law first recited 
the ancient statutes, from 
Magna Carta down, 
against arbitrary imprison- 
ment, arbitrary taxation, 
quartering of soldiery upon 
the people in time of peace, 
and against forced loans 
and benevolences. Then 
it named the frequent 
violations of right in these 
respects in recent years. 
And finally it declared all 
such infringements illegal. 
The Lords tried to save 
the king's dignity by add- 
ing an evasive clause to 
the effect that Parliament 
did not intend to interfere with " that sovereign power wherewith 
your majesty is intrusted." But the Commons rejected the 
amendment after a striking debate. "Sovereign power," said 
one, " would mean power above condition ; they could not leave 
the king that, for he had never had it." "The king's person I 
will call sovereign," said another, "but not his power" ; and a 
third added, " Magna Carta is such a fellow that he will have no 
sovereign." Finally, the Lords, too, passed the Petition, and 
Charles, after evasive delays, felt compelled to sign it. 




Charles I. — After a famous portrait by 
Van Dyck. 



THE PETITION OF RIGHT 



195 



In form, the document was a petition : in fact, when passed, 
and assented to by the king, it became a revision of the consti- 
tution down to date, so far as the personal rights of EngHshmen 
were concerned. Almost at once, however, in recess of Parlia- 
ment, Charles broke its provisions regarding taxes. 

Parliament reassembled in bitter humor. Heedless of the 
king's plea for money, it turned to punish the officers who had 
acted as his agents in the recent infringements of the Petition 
of Right. Then the Speaker stopped business by announcing 
that he had the king's command to adjourn the House.' Men 
knew that it would not be permitted to meet again, and there 
followed a striking scene. Two of the patriots (Holies and 
Valentine) bounded to the Speaker, thrust him back into his 
chair and held him there. ^ Sir Miles Hobart locked the doors 
against the king's messenger, putting the key in his pocket; 
and Eliot in a ringing speech moved a series of resolutions 
which were to form the platform of the liberal party in the dark 
years to come. Royalist members cried, Traitor ! Traitor ! 
Swords were drawn. Outside, an usher pounded at the door 
with a message of dissolution from the king. But the bulk of 
the members sternly voted the resolutions, declaring traitors 
to England (1) any one who should bring in innovations in re- 
ligion without the consent of Parliament, (2) any minister who 
should advise the illegal levy of taxes, (3) any officer who should 
aid in their collection, and (4) every citizen who should volun- 
tarily pay them. 

And in the moment's hush, when the great deed was done, 
Eliot's voice was heard once more, and for the last time, in that 
hall : " For myself, I further protest, as I am a gentleman, if 
my fortune be ever again to meet in this honorable assembly, 
where I now leave off, I will begin again." Then the doors 
swung open, and the angry crowd surged out. Eliot passed 



Eliot's 
Resolutions 



Eliot's 
death 



1 The king could adjourn the Parliament from time to time, or he could 
dissolve it altogether, so that no Parliament could meet until he had called for 
new elections. 

2 If the Speaker left the chair, business was at an end. 



196 ENGLAND AND THE STUARTS 

to the Tower, to die there a prisoner four years later. But 
EHot's friends remembered his words ; and, when another 
ParHament did meet, where he had left off, they began again. 

Eliot could have had his liberty if he had bent to acknowl- 
edge himself wrong. His wife died ; friends felt away ; .con- 
sumption attacked him, and his enemies knew that he must 
yield or die. His son petitioned for his release, on the ground 
that doctors had certified that without it he could not live. 
The king refused : " Though Sir John be brought low in body, 
yet is he as high and lofty in mind as ever." A month later, 
Eliot was dead. His son presented another petition, that he 
might have his father's body for burial. This request too was 
refused, and there was inscribed on the paper, — a mean act of 
a mean king, — " Let Sir John's body be buried in the church 
of that parish where he died." So Eliot's body rests in the 
Tower in some unmarked and unknown spot — which matters 
little, since free government in England and America is his 
monument. 

On the dissolution of the third Parliament of Charles, Eng- 
land entered a gloomy period. The king issued royal edicts 
in place of laws, and no Parliament met for eleven years (1629- 
1640). During this period, in many ways, the government 
sought the welfare of the nation, and it gave particular attention 
to the needs of the poor; but its methods were thoroughly 
despotic. 

To avoid the necessity of calling Parliaments, Charles now 
began to practice rigid economy. He sought, too, ingeniously 
to find new ways to get money, and, among other devices, his 
lawyers invented "ship-money." In time of invasion, seaboard 
counties had now and then been called upon by the kings to 
furnish ships for the national navy. Charles stretched this 
custom into a precedent for collecting a "ship-money tax" from 
all England in time of peace. 

John Hampden (p. 193) refused to pay the twenty shillings 
assessed upon his lands, and the famous ship-money case went to 
the courts (1637). James, in his time, had turned the courts 



JOHN HAMPDEN AND SHIP-MONEY 



197 



into servile tools by dismissing the only judge (Sir Edward 
Coke) who dared oppose his will. And now the slavish judges 
decided for the king — as had been expected. The king's 
friends were jubilant, seeing in the new tax "an everlasting 
supply on all occasions"; but Hampden had won the moral 
victory he sought. The twelve-day argument of the lawyers 
attracted wide attention, and the court in its decision was com- 
pelled to state the theory of despotism in its naked hideousness. 
It declared that there was no power to check fhe king's authority 
over his subjects, — their persons or their money, — "For," 
said the Chief Justice, "no act of Parliament makes any differ- 
ence." If England submitted now, she would deserve her 
slavery. 

The chief servants of the crown during this period were 
Archbishop Laud and Thomas Wentworth. Wentworth had 
been one of the leaders in securing the Petition of Right, but 
soon afterward he passed over to the side of the king and be- 
came Earl of StraflFord. His old associates looked upon him as a 
traitor to the cause of liberty. 

Laud was an extreme High-churchman and a conscientious 
bigot. He reformed the discipline of the church and ennobled 
the ritual; but he persecuted the Puritan clergy cruelly, with 
imprisonment and even by the cutting off of ears. 

As a result of this and of the political discouragement, 
that sect founded the colony of Massachusetts Bay. 
Practically all the immigration this colony received, be- 
fore the American Revolution, came in the ten years 
1630-1640, while Charles ruled without Parliament. 

In 1638 Laud tried to force Episcopacy on Presbyterian 
Scotland.^ But when the clergyman of the great church at 
Edinburgh appeared first in surplice, prayerbook in hand, 

' That Scotland had been becoming Presbyterian is noted above, on p. 162. 
Scotland had been joined to England when her King James had become 
king of England, but each country had its own Parliament, laws, and church. 
The union was "personal," and consisted in the fact that the two countries 
had the same king. This remained the theory until 1707 (p. 215). 



John 

Hampden 
and the 
" ship- 
money " 
tax 



Laud and 
Wentworth 



The 

Scottish 

Covenanters 



198 



ENGLAND AND THE STUARTS 



Jenny Geddes, a servant girl, hurled her stool ^ at his head, 
crying, — " Out, priest ! Dost say mass at my lug [ear] ! " 
The service broke up in wild disorder, and there followed a 
strange scene in the churchyard where stern, grizzled men 
drew blood from their arms, wherewith to sign their names to a 
"Solemn Oath and Covenant" to defend their own form of 
religion with their lives. This Covenant spread swiftly over 
all Lowland Scotland, and the Covenanters rose in arms and 
crossed the border. 

Charles' system of absolutism fell like a house of cards. He 
could get no help from England without a Parliament ; and 
(November, 1640) he called the Long Parliament. The great 
leaders of that famous assembly were the Commoners Pym, 
Hampden, Sir Harry Vane,- and, somewhat later, Cromwell. 
Pym took the place of Eliot, and promptly indicated that the 
Commons were the real rulers of England. When the Lords 
tried to delay reform, he brought them to time by his veiled 
threat : he " should be sorry if the House of Commons had to 
save England alone." 

The Scots remained encamped in England ; so the king had 
to assent to Parliament's bills. Parliament first made itself 
safe by a law that it could he dissolved 07ily by its own vote. Then 
it began where Eliot had left off, and sternly put into action 
the principles of his last resolutions. Laud, who had " brought 
in innovations in religion," and Wentworth, who had advised 
and helped carry out the king's policy, were condemned to 
death as traitors. The lawyers who had advised ship-money, 
and the judges who had declared it legal, were cast into prison 
or driven into banishment. And forty committees were ap- 
pointed, one for each county, to secure the punishment of the 
lesser officers concerned in the illegal acts of the government. 
Then Parliament abolished the Court of the Star Chamber 



1 Churches had no pews. People who wished to sit during the sermon 
carried their own stools. 

2 Vane had spent some time in Massachusetts and had been governor 
there. 



THE LONG PARLIAMENT 199 

and the High Commission, — two rather new courts which 
worked without juries and which, therefore, Charles had been 
able to use as instruments of tyranny. Meanwhile, the many 
martyrs whom Laud had imprisoned were freed from their 
dungeons, and welcomed to London by a joyous multitude 
that strewed flowers beneath the feet of their horses. These 
measures filled the first year,' and so far the Commons had 
been united — in punishing and redressing past grievances. 

But now a split began. Moderate men, led by the broad- Parliament 
minded Hyde and the chivalrous Falkland, thought enough l^esitates 
had been done. Parliament had taught the king a stern lesion : 
to do more would mean danger of revolution and anarchy, for 
which these men had no wish. So they drew nearer to the king. 

On the other hand, more far-sighted leaders, like Pym and 
Hampden, saw the necessity of securing safeguards for the future, 
since to them it was plain that the king's promises were worth- 
less. Moreover, a small Presbyterian and Independent party 
("Root and Branch" men), under Vane and Cromwell, wanted 
to overthrow Episcopacy. 

Pym brought matters to a head by introducing a Grand Pym's 

Remonstrance, — a series of resolutions which appealed to the ' ^®™°°" 

. . strance 

country for support m further measures agamst the king and 

the High-church party. In particular it proposed (1) that a 
synod of clergy should meet to reform the church ; and (2) that 
the king's choice of ministers (his chancellor, and so on) should 
be subject to the approval of Parliament. After an all-day and 
almost all-night debate, marked by bitter speech and even by 
the drawing of swords, the Commons adopted the Remonstrance 
by the narrow majority of eleven votes, amid a scene of wild con- 
fusion (November 22, 1641). Said Cromwell, as the House 
broke up, "If it had failed, I should have sold all I possess to- 
morrow, and never seen England more." 

Charles tried to reverse this small majority against him by 
destroying Pym, Hampden, and three other leaders, on a 
charge of treasonable correspondence with the invading Scots. 

1 The trial of Laud came later, but he was already a prisoner. 



200 



ENGLAND AND THE STUARTS 



Charles' 

attempt 

to seize 

"the 

five 

members 



No doubt they had been technically guilty of treason. But such 
"treason" against Charles was the noblest loyalty to England. 
The Commons paid no attention to the king's charges ; and so 
Charles entered the House in person, followed to the door by a 
body of armed cavaliers, to seize "the five members." 

News of his coming had preceded him ; and, at the order of 
the House, the five had withdrawn. Charles did not know this, 
and ordered the Speaker to point them out. The Speaker pro- 
tested that he had '" no eyes to see, nor tongue to speak," but 
as the House should direct him. "Well, well!" said the 
king; "my eyes are as good as another's"; and standing in 
the Speaker's place he looked over the room. " I see the birds 
are flown," he added, in a different tone, — and walked out 
baffled, followed by angry shouts of "Privilege ! Privilege !" ^ 

Charles' despotic attempt, and weak failure, consolidated the 
opposition. London rose in arms, and sent trainbands to guard 
Parliament. And Parliament now demanded that the king give 
it control of the militia and of the education of the royal princes. 
Charles withdrew to the conservative North, and unfurled the 
standard of civil war (1642). 



For Further Reading. — Green's English People (or his Short 
History) is thrillingly interesting for this and the following periods. 



1 Referring to the privilege of members of Parliament to be free from 
arrest, except on the order of the House itself (p. 112). 



Ironsides 



CHAPTER VI 

THE GREAT REBELLION AND THE COMMON'WEALTH 

Many men who had gone with ParUament in its reforms, now The 
chose the king's side rather than rebeUion and the danger of ^^^2-i6l'5 
anarchy. The majority of the gentry sided with the king, 
while in general the trading and manufacturing classes and 
the yeomanry fought for Parliament. At the same time, 
the struggle was a true "civil war," dividing families and old 
friends. The king's party took the name " Cavaliers " from the 
court nobles ; while the parliamentarians were called " Round 
Heads," in derision, from the cropped hair of the London 
'prentice lads.^ 

x\nd at first Charles was successful. The shopboys of the Cromwell's 
city trainbands could not stand before the chivalry of the 
"Cavaliers." But Oliver Cromwell, a colonel in the parlia- 
mentary army, had raised a troop known as Ironsides. He saw 
that the only force Parliament could oppose to the habitual 
bravery of the English gentleman was the religious enthusiasm 
of the extreme Puritans. Accordingly, he drew his recruits 
from the Independents of the east of England, — mostly 
yeomen farmers. They were men of godly lives, free from 
the usual license of a camp. They fell on their knees for 
prayer before battle, and then charged with the old Hebrew 
battle psalms upon their lips. By this troop the great battle of 
Mars ton Moor was won. Then Cromwell was put in chief 
command. He reorganized the whole army upon this "New 
Model" ; and soon after, the victory of Naseby virtually closed 
the war (1645). 

' The portraits of Cromwell and Vane (pp. 202, 204) show that Puritan 
gentlemen did not crop their hair. Short hair was a "class" mark. 

201 



202 



PURITAN REBELLION 



There is an instructive contrast between the civihzed nature 
of this war and the character of the Thirty Years' War in Ger- 
many, which was going on at the same time. In England non- 
combatants were rarely molested, and there was little needless 
destruction of property. And says John Fiske : " If we consider 
merely its territorial area or the number of men slain, the war 
of the English Parliament against Charles I seems a trivial affair 

. . . but if we consider the 
moral and political issues 
involved, and the influence 
of the struggle on the 
future welfare of mankind, 
we soon come to see that 
there never was a conflict 
of more world-wide sig- 
nificance than that from 
which Oliver Cromwell 
came out victorious. . . . 
If ever there were men 
who laid down their lives 
in the cause of all man- 
kind, it was those grim old 
Ironsides, whose watch- 
words were texts from 
Holy Writ, and whose 
battle cries were hymns 
Cromwell. — After Lely's portrait. of praise." 




Quarrel 
between 
Inde- 
pendents 
and Presby- 
terians 



When the war began, many EpiscopaUans in Parliament 
withdrew to join the king. This left the Presbyterians almost 
in control. Before long this party was strengthened still further 
by the need of buying the aid of Presbyterian Scotland. Then 
Parliament inade the English church Presbyterian. 

Soon, it began to compel all men to accept this form of wor- 
ship. On this point, the Presbyterian Parliament and the 
Independent "New Model" quarreled. Charles, now a pris- 



ENGLAND A REPUBLIC 203 

oner, tried to play oflF one against the other, — intending, with 
shameless duplicity, to keep promises to neither. "Be quite 
easy," he wrote his wife, "as to the concessions I may grant. 
When the time comes, I shall know very well how to treat 
these rogues ; and, instead of a silken garter [the badge of an 
honorary order of knighthood] I will fit them with a hempen 
halter." 

These dissensions and intrigues led to a "Second Civil War." 
But now the real government of England was in the army, A 
council of officers, with Cromwell for their head, prepared plans ; 
and the whole army "sought the Lord" regarding them in 
monster prayer-meetings. 

The army quickly stamped out the royalist and Presbyterian 
risings. Then, under order from the council of officers, Colonel 
Pride "purged" the House of Commons by expelling 143 
Presbyterians. After "Pride's Purge" (December, 1648), 
Parliament rarely had an attendance of more than sixty (out 
of an original membership of some five hundred) . The " Rump " 
were all Independents, and their leader was Vane. Pym and 
Hampden had died some time before. 

This remnant of Parliament, backed by the army, abolished the 
monarchy and the House of Lords, and brought "Charles Stuart, Co°J™o"- 
that man of blood," to trial for treason to England. Charles 1648-1654 
was executed, January 20, 1649, dying with better grace than 
he had lived. Then the "Rump" Parliament aboHshed Pres- 
byterianism as a state church, and declared England a republic, 
under the name of the Commonwealth. " The people," said a 
famous resolution, "are, under God, the original of all just power ; 
and the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, being 
chosen by the people, have the supreme power in this nation." 

The Scots were not ready for such radical measures, and Battle of 
they were angry at the overthrow of Presbyterianism. So Worcester 
they crowned the son of the dead king as Charles II, and in- 
vaded England to place him on the throne. Cromwell crushed 
them at Worcester, and the young "King of Scots" escaped to 
the continent. 



204 



PURITAN ENGLAND 



Cromwell 
and the 
Rump 



The Rump continued to rule for four years more. But it 
was only a shadow of the Parliament elected thirteen years 
before. Cromwell and the army grew anxious to see the 
government put on a permanent basis, and they felt that 
this could be done only by a real Parliament. The Rump was 

unwilling to dissolve ; but 
at last, under Cromwel^s 
insistence, it agreed to 
do so. 

Cromwell learned, how- 
ever, that it was hurrying 
through a bill which 
would make its members 
a part of the new Parlia- 
ment without reelection, 
and which, indeed, would 
give them power to reject 
elected members if they 
chose. Cromwell felt that 
he was being tricked. 
Hurrying to the House 
with a file of musketeers, 
he dispersed it (1653) with 
an unusual burst of pas- 
sion. "Come," he said, 
" I will put an end to your 
prating. You are no Parliament ! I say, you are no Parlia- 
ment!" His old friend, Vane, reproached his violence loudly. 
Cromwell turned with savage contempt : " Harry Vane ! Sir 
Harry Vane I The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane ! " And 
after his officers had led the Speaker from the chair, Cromwell 
added to the remaining members, — " It's you that have forced 
me to this. I have sought the Lord, night and day, that he 
would slay me rather than put me upon the doing of this work." 
Cromwell's outburst of temper at the Rump was natural. 
He saw that it was going to be almost impossible for him to 




Harry Vane. 



OLIVER CROMWELL 205 

preserve the form of parliamentary government, when the The Pro- 
only representatives of the nation had failed him — poor repre- 5^-°I%6 
sentatives though they were. There was no power that could 
even claim the right to call a Parliament. Cromwell and the 
army, however, summoned a national convention, to make a new 
constitution, and he made two other sincere attempts at Parlia- 
ments. But all these bodies proved dilatory and factious ; and 
Cromwell grew more and more hasty and arbitrary. 

Finally he and the army officers impatiently took the construc- 
tion of new machinery of government into their own hands. 
Cromwell assumed the title of Lord Protector (1654) ; and the 
following six years are the period of the Protectorate. 

The real difficulty ivas that the Independents were only a small 
fraction of the nation. They had won mastery by war, and 
they kept it through the discipline of the army. Cromwell 
became practically a dictator, with greater power than Charles 
had ever had. His rule was stained by cruelties in Ireland ; 
but in other respects it was wise and firm. He made England 
once more a Great Power, peaceful at home and respected 
abroad ; and he gave freedom of worship to all Protestant 
sects, — a more liberal policy in religion than could be found 
anywhere else in that age except in Holland and in Roger 
WilHams' little colony just founded in Rhode Island. 

At the best, however, Cromwell's rule was the rule of force, not 
of law. The noble experiment of a republic had failed miser- 
ably in the hands of its friends ; and, on Cromwell's death, the 
nation, with wild rejoicings, welcomed back Charles II in "the 
Restoration" of 1660. 

This is a good point at which to note the slow growth of reli- Excursus 
gious freedom. The Puritan Long Parliament, in 16 41 (while jgygioug 
still led by broadminded men like Pym, Hampden, and Hyde), freedom 
demanded from Charles I certain reforms in the church ; but 
it protested that it did not favor religious toleration : " We do 
declare it to be far from our purpose to let loose the golden reins 
of discipline and government in the church, to leave private 



206 PURITAN ENGLAND 

persons or particular congregations to take up what form of 
divine worship they please. For we hold it requisite that there 
should be throughout the whole realm a conformity to that order 
which the Jaws enjoin." 

No better statement was ever made of the almost universal 
opinion. Even people who no longer thought any one religion 
essential to salvation did think one form essential to good 
order in society. 

True, in that same year, Lord Brooke (a Puritan nobleman 
with Independent convictions) wrote nobly in a treatise on 
religion : " The individual should have liberty. No power on 
earth should force his practice. One that doubts with reason 
and humility may not, for aught I see, be forced by violence. 
Fire and water may be restrained ; but light cannot. It 
will in at every cranny. Now to stint it, is [to-morrow] to 
resist an enlightened and inflamed multitude. Can we not 
dissent in judgment, but we must also disagree in affection f" 

Only a few rare spirits anywhere in the world, however, 
reached this lofty view. Outside Holland and Roger WilUams' 
baby colony of Rhode Island, few had advanced as far as Crom- 
well. The world was not ready for religious freedom. 

For Further Reading. — Green's histories as before (cf. p. 143 
above). Carlyle's Cromwell (in his Heroes and Hero-worship) may well 
be read. George MacDonald's Si. George and St. Michael and Scott's 
Woodstock are excellent fiction for the Civil War, and they present some- 
what different views. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION 

With the Restoration, the great age of Puritanism closed. The 
The court, and the young cavahers all over the land, gave ^fl^^ 
themselves up to shameful licentiousness. Of course, among 
the countr}' gentry and the middle class of the towns, there 
continued to be large numbers of religious. God-fearing homes ; 
and in places even the somber morality of the Puritans sur- 
vived. But fashionable society followed largely the example 
of the court circle. 

Court literature, too, was indescribably corrupt and indecent. 
But, in just this age of defeat, Puritanism found its highest 
expression in literature. John Milton, years before, had given 
noble poems to the world — like his L' Allegro — but for many 
years he had abandoned poetry to work in Cromwell's Council 
and to champion the Puritan cause in prose pamphlets. Now, a 
blind, disappointed old man, he composed Paradise Lost. And 
John Bunyan, a dissenting minister, lying in jail under the 
persecuting laws of the new government, wrote Pilgrim's 
Progress. 

The established church became again Episcopalian, as it The 

has since remained. In the reaction against Puritan rule, the Episcopal 

° church 

new Parliament passed many cruel acts of persecution. Two restored 

thousand Puritan preachers were not only driven from their 

pulpits, but were forbidden to earn a living by teaching, or 

even to come within five miles of any city or borough in England. 

All dissenters — Catholic and Protestant — were excluded from 

the right to hold municipal office. And all religious worship 

except the Episcopalian was punished with severe penalties. 

In spite of all this, the great political principles for which the 

early Puritan Parliaments of Charles I had contended were 

207 



208 ENGLAND UNDER THE LATER STUARTS 

victorious. Even their old enemies adopted them. The 
ParUament that was elected in the fervor of welcome to the 
restored monarch was wildly enthusiastic for king and for 
church. Charles knew he could never get another so much to 
his mind ; and so he shrewdly kept this "Cavalier Parliament" 
through most of his reign — till 1679. But even the Cavalier 
Parliament insisted strenuously, and successfully, on Parlia- 
ment's sole right to impose taxes, regulate the church, and control 
foreign policy. And Charles' second Parliament adopted the 
great Habeas Corpus Act, which still secures Englishmen 
against arbitrary imprisonment — such as had been so common 
under Charles' father. The principle of this act was older than 
Magna Carta ; but the law of Charles' time first provided 
adequate machinery, much as we have it in America to-day, 
to enforce the principle. 

Charles II was careless, indolent, selfish, extravagant, witty. 
He is known as the "Merry Monarch." One of his courtiers 
described him in jesting rhyme as a king "who never said a 
foolish thing, and never did a wise one." 

But though lazy, Charles had real ability. He said lightly 
that he "had no mind to go on his travels again," and at any 
cost he avoided a clash with Parliament. However, in return 
for secret grants of money from Louis XIV of France, he shame- 
fully made England a mere satellite of that country in foreign 
affairs ; and at home he cautiously built up a standing army. 
There is reason to think that beneath his merry exterior Charles 
was nursing plans for tyranny far more dangerous than his 
father's ; but he died suddenly (1685) before he was ready to act. 



Beginning of 

political 

parties 



Real political parties first appeared toward the close of this 
reign. Charles had no legitimate son ; and his brother and 
heir, James, was a Catholic of narrow, despotic temper. The 
more radical members of Parliament introduced a bill to exclude 
him from the throne ; and their supporters throughout England 
sent up monster petitions to have the bill made law. The 
Catholics and the more conservative part of Parliament, espe- 



THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" OF 1688 209 

cially those who believed that Parliament had no right to change 
the succession, sent up counter-petitions expressing horror at 
the proposal. These "Abhorrers" called the other petitioners 
Whigs (Whey-eaters), a name sometimes given to the extreme 
Scotch Calvinists with their sour faces. The Whigs called their 
opponents Tories (bog-trotters), a name for the ragged Irish 
rebels who had supported the Catholic and royal policy in the 
Civil War. 

The bill failed ; but the rough division into parties remained. Whigs and 
It was a long time before there was any regular organization °"®* 
or precise platform ; but, in general, the Whigs believed in, the 
supremacy of Parliament, and sought on every occasion to limit 
the royal authority ; while the Tories sustained the royal author- 
ity and wished to prevent any further extension of the powers of 
the people. 

James II lacked his brother's tact. He arbitrarily "sus- jamesll, 
pended" the laws against Catholics, tried to intimidate the 1685-1688 
law courts, and rapidly increased the standing army. It was 
believed that he meant to make the established church Catholic ; 
and this belief prepared England for revolution. The Whig 
leaders called for aid to William of Orange, the Stadtholder of 
Holland, who had married James' daughter Mary. William 
landed with a few troops. James found himself utterly deserted, 
even by his army, and fled to France. 

The story of this Revolution of 1688 is not a noble one. Self- The 
ishness And deceit mark every step. William of Orange is "Glorious 
the only fine character on either side. There is no longer a 
patriot Eliot or Pym or Hampden, or a royalist Hyde or Falk- 
land. As Macaulay says, it was "an age of great measures 
and little men"; and the term "glorious," which English his- 
torians have applied to the Revolution, must be taken to belong 
to results rather than to methods. 

Those results were of mighty import. A Convention-Parlia- The 
ment declared the throne vacant, drew up the great Declaration ^^ °^ 
of Rights, the "third great document in the Bible of English 



210 ENGLAND AFTER 1688 

Liberties," and elected William and Mary joint sovereigns 
on condition of their assenting to the Declaration. The supremacy 
of Parliament over the king was once more firmly established. 
The new sovereigns, like the old Lancastrians, had only a parlia- 
mentary title to the throne. 

The next regular Parliament enacted this Declaration of 
Rights into a "Bill of Rights." The Bill of Rights stated 
once more the fundamental liberties of Englishmen, as 
Magna Carta and the Petition of Right had done. The 
final clause declared that no Roman Catholic should ever 
be eligible to ascend the throne. It fixed the order of 
succession (1) in the children of William and Mary, if any ; 
(2) in Mary's sister Anne. 

To understand the results of the Revolution at the close of 
the seventeenth century, we must carry the political story in 
part into the eighteenth. 
William III, William III was a great-grandson of William the Silent. He 
1688-1702 ranks among England's greatest kings. But he was unpopular, 
as a foreigner. (He spoke only his native Dutch, not English.) 
His reign (1688-1702) was spent mainly in war against the 
overshadowing might of Louis XIV of France. While only 
Stadtholder of Holland, William had already become the most 
formidable opponent of Louis XIV's schemes ; and now the 
French king undertook to restore James II to the English 
throne. 

This began a series of wars between France^ and England — 
the "Second Hundred Years' War." With slight intervals of 
peace, the struggle lasted from 1689 to 1815. The story will 
be told in future chapters. Now it is enough to note that the 
long conflict turned the government's attention away from 
reform and progress at home. During the next century and a 
quarter, there were great changes in England, especially in 
farming and manufactures ; but they were changes made by 
the people, without notice by the government. These changes 
will be studied in later chapters. Just in the first years, how- 



GAINS FOR FREEDOM 211 

ever, some remarkable reforms* were made by Parliament, both 
in politics and in religion. These were properly part of the 
Revolution. 

The religious reform was embodied in the Act of Toleration of Act of 
1689. The Revolution of 1688 was essentially the work of the Toleration 
English church. But the persecuted Protestant dissenters had 
rallied to its aid — against the Catholic James ; and William 
insisted that Parliament should now grant them freedom of 
worship. This was done. 

The law, however, did not apply to Catholics, Jews, or 
Unitarians. These three classes remained excluded not only 
from all right to worship in their own way — under severe 
penalties — but also from the right to hold office or attend the 
universities. Indeed the Protestant dissenters were not allowed 
to do either of these last things. Still, to permit by law the 
public exercise of more than one religion was a great step forward. 

The chief gains in political liberty, connected with the Revo- 
lution, come under four heads : 

1 . The Stuart kings had frequently interfered shamelessly Gains in 
with the independence of the courts. Now the judges were j^v^!!*^*^ 
made removable only by Parliament, not by the king. 

2. A triennial bill ordered that a new Parliament should be 
elected at least once in three years. This put an end to such 
abuse as the long life of the Cavalier Parliament. In 1716 the 
term was changed to seven years, and in 1911, to five. A Parlia- 
ment may dissolve itself sooner than this ; but it cannot last 
longer. 

3. Parliament hit upon a simple device which, indirectly, 
has put an end completely to the old way in which kings abused 
their power of dissolving Parliaments. After the Revolution, 
Parliaments determined to pass " revenue bills " (furnishing money 
for government expenses) only for a year at a time — instead 
of for the life of the sovereign, as had been customary — and 
not to pass such bills at all until other biisiness had been attended to. 
In like fashion, the Mutiny Act, which gives officers authority 
over soldiers, was passed henceforth only for short periods. 



cabinet 
government 



212 ENGLAND AFTER 1688 

That is, Parliament adopted the regular policy of delegating 
power of purse and sword for only one year at a time. Thence- 
forward, Parliaments have been assembled each year, and they 
have practically fixed their own adjournments. 

4. The greatest problem of parliamentary government (as 
Sir John Eliot had seen) was to control the "king's ministers" 
and make them really the ministers of Parliament. Parliament 
could remove and punish the king's advisers ; but such action 
could be secured only by a serious struggle, and against notorious 
offenders. Some way was wanted to secure ministers acceptable 
to Parliament easily and at all times. 
Beginning of This desired "Cabinet Government" was secured indirectly 
through the next century and a half ; but the first important 
steps were taken in the reign of William. At first William 
tried to unite the kingdom, and balance Whigs and Tories, by 
keeping the leaders of both parties among his ministers. But 
he was much annoyed by the jealousy and suspicion which 
Parliament felt toward his measures. Sometimes, too, there 
were dangerous deadlocks between king and Parliament at 
critical times. 

Then a shrewd political schemer suggested to the king that 
he should choose all his advisers and assistants from the Whigs, 
who had a majority in the House of Commons. Such ministers 
would have the confidence of the Commons ; and that body 
would support their proposals, instead of blocking all measures. 
William accepted this suggestion ; and a little later, when the 
Tories for a time secured a majority, he carried out the prin- 
ciple by replacing his "cabinet" with leading Tories. This 
was the beginning of ministerial government, or cabinet govern- 
ment. 

William, however, was a powerful ruler. He was not a 
tyrant in any way ; but he believed in a king's authority, and 
he succeeded for the most part in keeping the ministers the " Icing's 
ministers" — to carry out his policy. Queen Anne (1702-1714) 
tried to maintain a similar control over her ministry. But, 
like William and Mary, she too died without living children; 



THE GEORGES AND WALPOLE 



213 



and the crown passed b\' a new Act of Settlement to a great 
grandson of James II, the German George I, who was already 
Elector of Hanover.' (This law excluded nearer heirs of James, 
because they were Catholics, and it makes the title of every 
English sovereign since Anne.) Then cabinet government won. 
Neither George I nor his son George II spoke English ; and 
so far as they cared for matters of government at all, they 
were interested in their German principality rather than in 
England. They did not even attend "cabinet" meetings. 

' Hanover was given a vote in the electoral college of the Holy Roman 
Empire in 1691. The following table shows the relationship of the Han- 
overians to the Stuarts : 

(1) James I (1603-1625; see table on page 153) 



Growth of 
cabinet 
government 
under the 
Georges 



(2) Charles I (162.5-1649) 



Elizabeth 



Frederick V 
Elector Palatine 



r 



Mary (3) Charles II (4) .James II | 

m. William II •(1660-1685) (1685-1688) Rupert 

of Orange I (d. 1682) 



Sophia 

Electress 

of Hanover 



(5) William III =Mary (6) Anne James Edward (7) George I 
(1689-1702) (d. 1694) (1702-1714) the Old Pretender (1714-1727) 



Charles Edward 

the Young Pretender 

(d. 1788) 



(8) George II 
(1727-1760) 

• 1 
Frederick 
(d. 1751) 

I 

(9) George III 

(1760-1820) 



(10) George IV (11) William IV Edward Duke of Kent Ernest Augustus, 
(1820-1830) (1830-1837) (d. 1820) who became King 



(12) Victoria 
' (1837-1901) 

(13) Edward VII 
(1901-1910) 

I 

(14) George V 

(1910- ) 



of Hanover in 
1837, on the acces- 
sion of a woman 
in England 



214 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



Sir Robert 
Walpole 



During their half-century (1714-1760), the government of 
England was left to the group of ministers, or "the cabinet." 
For nearly half the period (or from 1721 to 1742) the leading 
man in the cabinet was the Whig Sir Robert Walpole. Walpole 
selected the other ministers, and put before Parliament his own 
plans under the king's name. He is properly called "the first 
Prime Minister." Thus the reigns of these two stupid German 
Georges gave a great impetus to true cabinet government. The 
"king's ministers" were fairly on the way to become the "ministers 
of Parliament." 

Unhappily, Parliament itself did not yet really represent the 
nation. Walpole sought earnestly, and on the whole wisely, 
to advance the material prosperity of England, and especially 
to build up her trade. Accordingly he clung tenaciously to a 
policy of peace. But he ruled largely by unblushing corruption. 
Said he cynically, "Every man has his price." Certainly he 
found it possible to buy many members of Parliament with gifts 
of lucrative offices — oftentimes offices with no duties attached 
to them. During his rule, it was not a parliamentary majority 
that made the ministry, but the ministry that made the parliamentary 
majority. The same method, used only a little less shamelessly, 
was the means by which the ministers of George III in the next 
generation managed Parliament and brought it to drive the 
American colonies into war. The final steps by which the 
English people secured complete control over this executive 
branch of the government belong to a later part of the story. 



English 
society 
in the 
eighteenth 
century 



English upper classes in the eighteenth century were artificial 
and dissipated. The middle class was hearty, bluff, and whole- 
somely honest ; but it was also exceedingly rude and coarse and 
immodest. Modern refinement of feeling and conduct had 
hardly appeared. England was not immoral. Compared with 
other lands, she was a moral country. But there was little 
moral earnestness. The age of Puritanism had vanished. The 
established Episcopalian church had many "fox-hunting 
parsons," who neglected their duties, or made them empty forms. 



THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 215 

while they sought the companionship of the neighboring squires 
in sports and in drinking bouts. 

A protest against this lack of moral earnestness in the church The 
and in society was the great Methodist movement. The reviv^ ^^ 
founder was John Wesley, about 1738. While a student at 
Oxford, some years earlier, Wesley had established a religious 
society among his fellow students ; and these young men were 
nicknamed Methodists, because of their regular habits. Wesley 
became a clergyman of the established church ; but he soon 
came to place special emphasis on the idea of sudden and 
absolute "conversion" from sin. Aided *by his brother 
Charles and by the powerful preacher Whitefield, he journeyed 
through England, holding great "revivals" in vast open-air 
meetings, preaching the love of Christ and its power to save 
from sin. 

Wesley was a man of wonderful spirituality ; but his fellow 
clergy for the most part were shocked at his method and refused 
to take him into their pulpits, and his converts came almost 
wholly from the lower classes. Much against the wish of the 
original leaders, the movement finally was organized as a 
dissenting "Methodist church." But Wesley's work went 
further than merely to found a new church, mighty as that 
church has become. The greatest result of the Methodist 
movement was found in the revivifying and spiritual quickening 
that followed within the established church and throughout all 
English life — somewhat as the Protestant revolt had reformed 
the Catholic church. 

Meantime "England" was becoming "Great Britain." "Great 
James I (1603) joined Scotland and England under one crown ^"**"^ 
(p. 197). A century later (1707) this "personal union" was 
made a true consolidation by "the Act of Union," adopted by 
the parliaments of both countries. Scotland gave up her 
separate legislature, and became part of the "United King- 
dom," with the right to send members to the English Parliament 
and to keep her own established Presbyterian church. Halfway 



216 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

between these two dates, Cromwell completed the conquest of 
Ireland. And that same seventeenth century had seen an- 
other and vaster expansion of England and of Europe, to which 
we now turn. 

For Further Reading. — It is desirable for reading students to 
continue Green at least through the Revolution of 1688. Blackmore's 
Lorna Doone is a splendid story which touches some passages in the 
history of the closing seventeenth century. 

Exercise. — The dates in English seventeenth-century history 
are important for^ an understanding of early American history : 
especially, 1603 (accession oi James I) ; 1629-1640 (No-parliament 
period) ; 1648-1660 (Commonwealth) ; 1660 (Restoration) ; 1688 
(Revolution). 



CHAPTER VIII 



EXPANSION INTO NETV \SrORLDS 



The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — the age of the 
English Renaissance, of the Protestant Revolt, of the beginnings 
of scientific experiment, of the Puritan movement, and of the 
growth of political liberty in England — saw also the expan- 
sion of Europe into New Worlds east and west. 

During the Crusades Europe had learned to depend on Asiatic 
spices, sugars, cottons, silks, and metal wares as necessities of 
daily life. For two hundred years a vast caravan trade brought 
these articles, in ever growing streams, from central Asia to 
the eastern shores of the Mediterranean for shipment to the 
West. But in 1453 the Turks captured Constantinople, the 
emporium of the northern route from Asia to Europe by the 
Black Sea ; and year by year the same ruthless barbarians 
crept further south, endangering the remaining routes by 
caravan and by the Red Sea. 

Europe, just awakening from the long torpor of the Middle 
Ages, and armed with the new "mariner's compass " (p. 221), 
eagerly sought new trade routes into Asia. Portugal found 
one, to the south, around Africa. Columbus, aided by the 
Spanish Isabella, tried a still bolder western route — and 
stumbled on America in his path. 

These discoveries worked revolutions in European life and 
thought. The size of the known earth had been more than 
doubled ; and from the first the marvels of the new regions 
added vastly to the intellectual stir in Europe — as we may see, 
in part, in Shakspere's Tempest. More than this, the dis- 
coveries proved to all men that many old, long unquestioned 
ideas about the earth were false. True, the Ancients had held 

217 



Commercial 
conditions 
and the 
discovery 
of America 



Effect upon 

European 

thought 



knowledge 



218 EXPANSION OF EUROPE 

correct ideas about the size and shape and nature of the earth, 
and had played with the notion of saihng around it. Aristotle 
speaks of "persons" who held that it might be possible; and 
Strabo, a Roman geographer, suggested even that one or more 
continents might lie in the Atlantic between Europe and Asia. 
But during the Middle Ages men had come to believe that 
the known habitable earth was bounded on all sides by an un- 
inhabitable and untraversable world, — on the north by snow 
and ice, on the south by a fiery zone, on the west by watery 
wastes stretching down an inclined plane up which men might 
not return, and on the east by a dim land of fog and fen, the 
abode of strange and terrible monsters.^ The Indian Ocean, 
too, was thought to be a lake, encompassed by the shores of 
Asia and Africa. 
New These false views had been partly corrected by a better 

geograpWcal geographical knowledge of Asia, gained in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries. About 1260, Louis IX of France (p. 85) 
sent Friar Rubruk as ambassador to the court of the Tartar 
Khan in central Asia ; and the friar on his return reported that 
he had heard of a Jiavigablc ocean east of Cathay (China), with a 
marvelously wealthy island, Zipango (Japan). 

This rumor of an ocean to the east made a leap in men's 
thought. In England, that remarkable man, Friar Bacon 
(p. 103), at once raised the question whether this ocean might 
not be the same as the one that washed Europe on the west and 
whether men might not reach Asia by sailing west into the 
Atlantic. Indeed, Bacon wrote a book to support these con- 
jectures, adding many opinions of the Ancients ; and extensive 
extracts from this volume were copied into a later book, which 
was to become a favorite of Columbus. Such speculation 
implies that scholars understood the sphericity of the earth. 
Saracenic schools had preserved the old Greek knowledge in 
this matter, and some European thinkers had been familiar 
with it, even in the "Dark Ages." 

• For some of these ideas, see the curious and interesting Travels of Sir 
John Mandeville (thirteenth century). 



HENRY THE NAVIGATOR 



219 



Next the Mongols, who, for a time, ruled all northern and 
central Asia, opened China to western strangers to a degree 
altogether new for that land ; and, while Mongol dominion 
lasted, many strangers and merchants visited the East. Among 
these were three Venetians, the Polo brothers, who on their 
return sailed from Peking through the straits into the Indian 
Ocean and up the Persian • Gulf. This proved true the rumor 
of Ruhruk regarding an 
eastern ocean, and proved 
also that the Indian Ocean 
^vas not landlocked. 

And the new truth 
reached a large proportion 
of the very small part of 
Europe that read books. 
Travelers in that age did 
not often write descrip- 
tions of their travels. One 
of these Polos, however, 
being captured, soon after 
his return, in a sea fight be- 
tween Venice and Genoa, 
remained a prisoner in 
Genoa for some years ; 
and the stories that he told of his adventures were written down 
by one of his fellow captives. Thus was made " The Book of Ser 
Marco Polo," one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages. 

From this time it was possible to think seriously of reaching 
India by sailing west. Soon afterward, as we have described , com- 
mercial conditions changed so as to impel men earnestly to try it. 

The Portuguese, under Prince Henry the Navigator, had The 
already been engaged in building up a Portuguese empire in Portuguese 
Africa and in the islands of the Atlantic (Azores, Canary, and 
Verde ; and about 1470 they began to attempt to reach India 




Illustration in a Thirteenth Century 
Manuscript, showing a Monk teach- 
ing the Globe. 



• The name "Cape Verde" indicates the surprise of the discoverers (1450) 
at verdure so far south. 



220 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 



by sailing around Africa. In 1486 a Portuguese captain, Bar- 
tholomew Diaz, while engaged in this attempt, was carried far 
to the south in a storm, and on his return to the coast he found 
it 071 his left hand as he moved toward the north. He followed 
it several hundred miles, well into the Indian Ocean. Then 
his sailors compelled him to turn back to Portugal. India was 
not actually reached until the expedition of Vasco da Gama in 
1498, after more memorable voyages in another direction. 




Columbus at the Council Table of Ferdinand and Isabella. — From 
the painting by Brozik in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. 



Columbus, 
1492 



One of the sailors with Diaz in 1486, when in this way he 
rounded the Cape of "Good Hope," was a Bartholomew Colum- 
bus, whose brother Christopher also had sailed on several 
Portuguese voyages. Now, however, for some years, Christo- 
pher Columbus had devoted himself to the more daring theory 
that India could be reached by sailing west into the open 
Atlantic. Portugal, well content with her monopoly of African 
exploration, refused to assist him to try his plan. Henry VII 
of England also declined to furnish him ships. But finally 
the high-minded Isabella of Castile, while the siege of Granada 



THE MARINER'S COMPASS 



221 



was in progress, fitted out his small fleet, and in 1492 Colum- 
bus added America to the possessions of Spain. 

The ships and other tools used by these early discoverers The 
seem imperfect indeed to us. Happily they did have the one 
indispensable instrument for their work — and the curious 
story of its discovery is worth a place here. In 1258, Brunetto 
Latini, the tutor of Dante, visited Friar Bacon in England, and 
wrote to a friend in Italy as follows : 



manners 
compass 



"Among other things he [Bacon] showed me a black, ugly stone called 
a magnet, which has the surprising quality of drawing iron to it ; and 
if a needle be rubbed upon it and afterward fastened to a straw, so that 
it will swim upon water, it will instantly turn to the pole star. . . . 
Therefore, be the night never so dark, neither moon nor stars visible, 
yet shall the sailor by help of this needle be able to steer his vessel aright. 
This discovery so useful to all who travel by sea, must remain concealed 
until other times, because no master mariner dare use it, lest he fall 
under imputation of being a magician, nor would sailors put to sea 
with one who carried an instrument so evidently constructed by the 
devil. A time may come when these prejudices, such hindrances to 
researches into the secrets of nature, will be overcome ; and then man- 
kind will reap benefits from the labor of such men as Friar Bacon, 
who now meet only with obloquy and reproach." 



These discoveries by Columbus and the Portuguese at the Center of 



end of the fifteenth century, revolutionized also the distribution 
of wealth in Europe. The center of historical interest shifted 
westward once more. The Mediterranean, for two thousand 
years the one great highway between Europe and the Orient, 
gave way to the Atlantic and the "passage round the Cape." 
And with the decay of Mediterranean trade, the cities of Italy 
lost their leadership both in commerce and in art, while vast 
gain fell to the seaboard countries on the Atlantic. 

For a hundred years, it is true, the direct material gains were 
confined to the two countries which had begun the explorations. 
Portugal built up a great and rich empire in the Indian Ocean 
and in the Pacific, and an accident gave her Brazil. Otherwise, 
the sixteenth century in America belongs to Spain. 



historical 
interest 
shifts 
westward 



222 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 



Spain in 
America 



Defeat of 
the 

Axmada, 
1588 



The story of her conquests is a tale of heroic endurance, 
marred by ferocious cruelty, — "all horrid transactions," as 
an old Spanish chronicler said. Not till twenty years after 
the discovery, did the Spaniards advance to the mainland of 
America for settlement; but, once begun, her handful of ad- 
venturers swooped north and south. By 1550, she held all 
South America (save Portugal's Brazil), all Central America, 
Mexico, the Californias far up the Pacific coast, and the Floridas. 
The gold from Mexico and Peru helped to give Spain her proud 
place as the mightiest country in Europe, and she guarded 
these American possessions jealously. The Gulf of Mexico 
and the Caribbean Sea were Spanish lakes, and the whole 
Pacific was a "closed sea." Frenchman or Englishman, caught 
upon those waters, found his grave beneath them. 

Nor was Spain content with this huge empire on land and 
sea. She was planning grandly to occupy the Mississippi 
valley and the Appalachian slope in America and to seize 
Holland and England in Europe; but in 1588 she received her 
fatal check, at the hands of the English sea dogs, in the ruin 
of her Invincible Armada. 

That victory was a turning point in world history. Spain 
never regained her old supremacy on the sea ; and so the other 
seaboard countries of Western Europe were free to try their 
fortunes in America. But Holland, in her half-century of 
rebellion against Spain, turned her chief energies to seizing 
Portugal's old empire in the Orient, which had now become 
Spain's (p. 166). The Swedish colonies on the Delaware were 
never formidable to the claims of other nations, after the death 
of Gustavus Adolphus (p. 175). And so North America was 
left to France and England. 



France in 
America 



For a time, France seemed most likely to succeed Spain as 
mistress in North America. A quarter of a century, it is true, 
went to exploration and failure ; but in 1608 Champlain founded 
the first permanent French colony at Quebec. Soon canoe- 
fleets of traders and missionaries were coasting the shores of 



FRANCE IN AMERICA 



223 



French 
advantages 



the Great Lakes and establishing stations at various points 
still known by French names. Finally, in 1682, after years of 
gallant effort, La Salle followed the Mississippi to the Gult, 
setting up French claim to the entire valley. 

From that time New France consisted of a colony on the 
St Lawrence, in the far north, and the semi-tropical colony of 
New Orleans, joined to each other by a thin chain of trading 
posts and military sta- 
tions along the con- 
necting waterways. 

It is easy to point 
out certain French ad- 
vantages in the race 
with England for North 
America. At home 
French statesmen 
worked steadily to 
build a French empire 
in the New World, 
while the English gov- 
ernment for the most 
part ignored English 
colonies. The thought of such empire for their country, too, 
inspired French explorers in the wilderness - splendid patriots 
like Champlain, Ribault, and La Salle. France also sent forth 
the most zealous and heroic of missionaries to convert the savages. 
These two mighty motives, patriotism and missionary zeal, 
played a greater part in founding New France than in establishing 
either Spanish or English colonies. Moreover, the French could 
deal with the natives better than the stiffer, less sympathetic 
English could; and the French leaders were men of far-reach- 
ing views. . ,11 „r , • * 
But though the French colonies were strong m the leaders, We^akpomts 
they were weak in- some vital matters that depended on the colonization 
mass of the colonists. They lacked homes, individual enter- 
prise, and political life. 




La Salle Taking Possession of the Missis- 
sippi Valley for France, at the mouth of 
the river. From an imaginative painting by 
Marchand, at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. 



224 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 



1. New France was not a country of agriculture. Except 
for a few leaders and missionaries, the settlers were either un- 
progressive peasants or reckless adventurers. For the most 
part they did not bring families, and, if they married, they 
took Indian wives. Agriculture was the only basis for a perma- 
nent colony ; but these colonists did not take to regular labor : 
instead they turned to trapping and the fur trade, and adopted 
Indian habits. 

2. The French government sought, in vain, to remedy this by 
sending over. cargoes of "king's girls," and by offering bonuses 
for early marriages and large families. The easiest remedy 
would have been to let the Huguenots come. They w6re skill- 
ful artisans and agriculturists, and, while they held towns for 
themselves (pp. 173, 174), they had shown some fitness for self- 
government. But Louis XIV of France, while he lavished 
money in sending undesirable immigrants, refused to let heretics 
found a new state. In large part, it was religious bigotry which 
lost France her chance. 

3. Paternalism smothered private enterprise in industry. 
New France was taught to depend, not on herself, but on the aid 
and direction of a government three thousand miles away. 
Trade was shackled by silly restrictions, and hampered by silly 
encouragements. The rulers did everything. " Send us money 
to build storehouses" ran the begging letters of the colonial 
governors to the French king. "Send us a teacher to. make 
sailors. We want a surgeon." And so, at various times, re- 
quests for brickmakers, iron-workers, pilots. New France got 
the help she asked ; but she did not learn to walk alone. 

4. Political life, too, was lacking. France herself had become 
a centralized despotism ; and, in New France, as a French 
writer (Tocqueville) says : " this deformity was seen as though 
magnified by a microscope." No public meetings could be held 
without special license from the governor ; and, if licensed, they 
could do nothing worth while. The governor's ordinances 
(not the people) regulated pew rent, the order in which digni- 
taries should sit in church, the number of cattle a man might 



WHY FRANCE FAILED IN AMERICA 225 ^ 

keep, the pay of chimney sweeps, the charges in inns, and so 
on. "It is of greatest impdrtance," wrote one official, "that 
the people should not be at liberty to speak their minds." 

Worse than that — the people had no minds to speak. In 
1672, Frontenac, the greatest governor of New France, tried 
to introduce the elements of self-government.- He provided 
a system of "estates" to advise with him, — a gathering of 
clergy, nobles, and commons (citizens and merchants); and 
he ordered that Quebec should have a sort of town meeting 
twice a year to elect aldermen and to discuss public business. 
The home government sternly disapproved these mild innova- 
tions, reminding Frontenac that at home the kings had done 
away with the old States General (p. 86), and directing him 
to remember that it was "proper that each should speak for 
himself, and no one for the whole." The plan fell to pieces; 
the people cared so IMefor it that they made no effort to save it. 

Very different was the fringe of English colonies that grew Engl^d^_^^ 
up on the Atlantic coast, never with a king's subsidies, often gj*^ .^J" 
out of a king's persecution, and asking no favor but to be let America 

alone. 

During the last quarter of the sixteenth century, when Eliza- 
beth's reign was half gone, England entered openly on a daring 
rivalry with the overshadowing might of Spain. Out of that 
rivalry, English America was born — by the work not of 
sovereigns, but of individual adventurous patriots. Reckless 
and picturesque freebooters, like Drake and Hawkins, sought 
profit and honor for themselves, and injury to the foe, by raiding 
the wide-flung realms of New Spain. More farsighted men, 
like Raleigh, saw that English colonies in America would be 
" a great bridle to the Indies of the Kinge of Spaine," and began 
attempts so to "put a byt in the anchent enemy's mouth." 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Raleigh, in Ehzabeth's reign, f^tive^^f 
made the first attempts. These came to nothing, because p^nioters 
just then the energies of the nation were drained by the ex- at home 
hausting struggle with the might of Spain in Europe. Then 



226 



EXPANSION OP EUROPE 



James became king, and sought Spanish friendship; and 
Englishmen began to fear lest their chance for empire was 
slipping through their fingers. Men said that a terrible mis- 
take had been made when Henry VII refused to adopt the 
enterprise of Columbus, and all the more they insisted that 
England should not now abandon Virginia, — " this one enter- 
prise left unto these days." 




Francis Drake Knighted by Queen Elizabeth on the deck of his ship, 
the Golden Hind, at his return from raiding Spanish America in his 
voyage round the globe (1581). — From a contemporary drawing by Sir 
John Gilbert. 



Moreover, population had doubled in the long internal peace 
since the Wars of the Roses, rising to some four million people. 
This was still only a tenth as many people as the island sup- 
ports to-day; but, under the industrial system of that time, 
England needed an outlet for this " crowded" population (p. 184). 
The more enterprising of the hard-pressed yeomanry were glad 
to seek new homes ; and this class furnished most of the manual 
labor in the early colonies. 




ENGLISH AMERICA. 
1660-1690 



English settlement, 1660 

Dutch settlement. i660 

Swedish settlement, i660 

Limit of English occupation 
in 1690 I 



ENGLAND IN AMERICA 227 

But captains and capitalists, too, were needed; and a new 
condition in England just after the death of Elizabeth turned 
some of the best of the middle class toward American adven- 
ture. Until James made peace with Spain (1604), the high- 
spirited youth, and especially the younger sons of gentry 
families, fought in the Low Countries for Dutch independence 
(p. 168) or made the "gentlemen-adventurers" who under com- 
manders like Drake paralyzed the vast domain of New Spain 
with fear. Now these men sought occupation and fortune in 
colonizing America, still attacking the old enemy, and in his 
weakest point. These young adventurers were not used to 
steady industry, and they were restless under discipline. But 
when they had learned somewhat of the needs of frontier life, 
their pluck and endurance made them splendid colonists. 

Such were the forces in English life that established Puritanism 
Virginia, early in the reign of James I. Toward the close of 
that same reign, Puritanism was added to the colonizing forces, 
and, before the Long Parliament met, there was a second patch 
of English colonies on the North Atlantic shore. After this, 
the leading motive for colonization was a desire to better one's 
worldly state — to win a better home or more wealth than the 
Old World offered — though, late in the century, religious per- 
secution in England played its part again in founding the great 
liberal colony of Pennsylvania. And so, from one cause and England's 
another, at the time of the "Revolution of 1688," the English success 
settlements in America had expanded into a broad band of twelve 
great colonies, reaching from the Penobscot to the Savannah, with 
a total population of a quarter of a million. 

These colonies all enjoyed the English Common Law, with Transfer of 
its guarantees for jury trial, freedom of speech, and other F'^^j^^ ^^ 
personal liberties (such as were known in no other people's America 
colonies for two hundred years) ; and almost as soon as founded, 
they developed also a large degree of political liberty. They 
all possessed their own self-governing representative assemblies, 
modeled on the English Parliament. 

Moreover, not all England, but only the more democratic 



228 



EXPANSION OF EUROPE 



part of English life, was transferred to America. No hereditary 
nobles or monarch or bishop ever made part of colonial America. 
And that part of English society which did come was drawn 
toward still greater democracy by the presence here of un- 
Hmited free land. When the Puritan gentlemen, who at first 
made up the governing body in Massachusetts colony, tried to 
fix wages for carpenters by law, as the gentry did in England, 
the New England carpenters simply ceased to do carpenter 
work and became farmers. Thus wages rose, spite of aristo- 
cratic efforts, to hold them down. Free land helped to main- 
tain equality in industry, and so in politics ; and the English 
colonies from the first began to diverge from the old home in 
the direction of even greater freedom. 

At the same time, the colonists icere essentially English. Their 
free institutions were all English in origin; and they themselves 
were Englishmen on a distant frontier. Free land did not 
make New France democratic and self-governing. Frenchmen 
and Englishmen in the New World developed along lines of despot- 
ism or freedom upon which their old homes had started them. 

In the next chapter we shall see how the story of American 
colonization merged with the story of European wars. The 
conflict in Europe (p. 210) between William III of England and 
Louis XIV of France became a hundred years' conflict (1690- 
1815) for empire in America and Asia. 

For Further Reading. — The student should study the expansion 
of Europe in Woodward's Expansion of the British Empire, I, 1-263 ; 
Seeley's Expansion of England; or Caldecott's English Colonization. 



PART III 

THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV AND FREDERICK II 
1648-1789 



CHAPTER IX 

FRENCH LEADERSHIP 

The period we studv in the next three short chapters covers 
the century and a half from the close of the hundred years of 
religious wars to the beginning of the French Revolution (1648- 
1789). During these 141 years the map of Europe was mces- 
santly shifting. The student should read the story, but the • 
teacher may find it best to conduct recitations with open 
books and to fix only a few summaries. 

The last part of the Thirty Years' War, we saw, was something Th^e^^^^^ 
besides a religious conflict. The Hapsburgs had long rmged ^fpo^er" 
France about with peril; and so Catholic France at last aided 
Protestant Germany and Holland to break the power of Catholic 
Austria and Spain. Such attempts to destroy a too powerful 
neighbor are characteristic of the next hundred years of war. 
The chief object of statesmen became to keep any one country 
from growing too strong- for its neighbors' safety. This was Threatened 
called maintaining the Balance of Power. For many years 
France was the country that threatened that balance, and so league 
after league of other countries was organized against her. 
International morality was low and selfish, however, and com- 
monly the nations were willing to let a strong Power rob a 
weaker neighbor, if they could find "compensation" (and 

229 



230 



THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV 



maintain the "balance") by themselves robbing some other 
weak state. 

Another <?urious fact is that these wars were dynastic wars 
(wars in the interests of ruling families) more than any others 
that Europe had ever seen. And the personal likings and 
hatreds of kings, as well as their family interests, interfered 
sometimes with their devotion to the "balance of power." 

During most of the long period, the stage is held by one or 
another of three great rulers, Louis XIV of France (1643-1715), 
Peter the Great of Russia (1689-1725), and Frederick the 
Great of Prussia (1740-1786). The main influence of Peter 
was spent directly upon his own country ; but Louis and Fred- 
erick belonged to all Europe, and the period is covered by 
the Age of Louis XIV and the Age of Frederick II. 

In the early years of Louis XIV it seemed that his reign 
was to rival that of Henry IV. With his great minister, Colbert, 
he introduced economy into the finances, encouraged new 
manufactures, built roads, introduced canals, and watched 
zealously over the growth of New France in America. But in 
1667 he began a series of wars that filled most of the remaining 
forty years of his reign. During this half-century despotic 
France threatened freedom for the world, as Spain had done 
a century before, and much as HohenzoUern Germany has 
recently been threatening it. 

In the first twelve years of war, Louis sought to seize territory 
on his northeastern frontier. The Dutch Republic was his 
chief obstacle. Finally, Louis dropped all other plans, in order 
to crush that little state. In 1672, without warning, he seized 
the duchy of Lorraine — much as the Germans seized Luxemburg 
at the opening of the recent World War — and so won access 
to Holland's frontier, which he crossed with a splendid army of 
100,000 men. The Dutch intrusted their government to Wil- 
liam of Orange (who afterward became William III of England). 
William was not a supreme genius, like his great-grandfather, 
William the Silent ; but he was faithful, persistent, and heroic. 
More than any other man he foiled the ambition of France. 



FIRST WARS OF LOUIS XIV 



231 



Friends urged upon William that conflict with the mighty 
power of Louis was hopeless, and that he could only see his 
country lost. "There is a way never to see it lost," he replied 
quietly ; " that way is to die on the last dike." With such grim 
determination, he finally cut the dikes, and the North Sea 
drove out the French armies. Meantime William toiled cease- 
lessly in building up against France an alliance of European 
powers, until Louis was compelled to accept peace with only 
slight gains of territory from the Spanish Netherlands. 

During ten years of truce that followed, Louis continued The Edict 
to seize bits of territory along the Rhine — including the " free °^ ^^^j^^ 
city" of Strassburg. But the important event of this period 
was his treatment of the Huguenots. In 1685 he revoked the 
Edict of Nantes, and tried to compel the Huguenots to accept 
Catholicism. Dragoons were quartered in the Huguenot dis- 
tricts, and terrible persecutions fell upon those who refused to 
abandon their faith. Protestantism did finally disappear from 
France. But, though Louis tried to prevent any heretic from 
leaving France ali^•e, tens of thousands (perhaps 300,000 in 
all) escaped to Holland, Prussia, England, and America.^ The 
effect of this flight on France corresponded in a measure to 
the effect of the expulsion of the Moriscoes (p. 171) on Spain. 
It was a crushing blow to the prosperity of the country. The 
rest of Louis' reign was a period of failure. 

The second series of wars began in 1689, when William of Later wars 
Orange had become king of England (p. 210). As before, the o^LomsXIV 
French armies seemed invincible in the field ; but, as before, Wil- 
liam checked Louis by building up a general European alliance 
against him. England had now taken Holland's place as the 
center of opposition to French despotism. Louis fought mainly 
to get more Rhine territory ; but this time he kept ?io gains. 
This war is known in American history as "King William's 

' In America the Huguenots went mainly to the Carolinas ; but some old 
Virginia families trace their origin to this immigration. In New York John 
Jay and Alexander Hamilton were both of Huguenot descent. And in Massa- 
chusetts the Huguenot influence is suggested by the names of Paul Revere, 
Peter Faneuil, and Governor Bowdoin. 



232 THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV 

War." The struggle had widened from a mere European war into 
a Titanic conflict between France and England for world-empire. 

The war-methods of France in this struggle were horrible. 
French armies deliberately depopulated large districts. A 
striking passage of Macaulay tells the fate of one Rhine 
province : 

" The commander announced to near half a million human 
beings that he granted them three days grace. . . . Soon 
the roads and fields were black with innumerable men, 
women, and children, fleeing from their homes. . . . Flames 
went up from every market place, every parish church, 
every county seat." 

This was the last time in Europe that such atrocious and 
barbarous warfare was seen — until Germany used even 
more ferocious methods in the World War. Germany's 
sin, in part, is that she has remained on a level that the rest 
of Europe outgrew more than two hundred years ago. 

Next, Louis sought extension on his other land frontier. 
Charles II, the last Spanish Hapsburg, was dying. The crown 
would go naturally either to the Austrian Hapsburgs or to the 
sons of Louis XIV, who were nephews of Charles. Louis 
finally agreed to a partition treaty, drawn up by William of 
Orange, for dividing the Spanish realms among the powers of 
Europe. But the proud Spanish people, who had not been 
consulted, had no mind for such an assassination of their empire. 
They preferred instead the accession of Louis' younger grand- 
son as Philip V. When Louis became sure of this (1700), he 
decided to snatch the whole prize. He placed Philip on the 
Spanish throne, and said exultantly, "The Pyrenees no longer 
exist." 

But Europe united against France and Spain in the "War 
of the Spanish Succession," known in American history as 
"Queen Anne's War." In this struggle, for the first time, 
success in the field lay with the Allies. The English Marl- 
borough and the Hapsburg Prince Eugene were two of the 



FAILURE OP FRENCH AGGRESSION 233 

greatest generals of history, and they won terrible victories 
over the hitherto invincible armies of France, at Blenheim 
in Bavaria, and at Ramillies, Oudenardc, and Malplaquet in 
Belgium, the suffering battleground of these struggles. 

The Peace of Utrecht (1713) left Philip king of Spain, but Peace of 
he had to renounce for himself and his heirs all claim upon the 
French throne. France gained no territory in Europe, and in 
America she lost Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to Eriglaiid. 
England also acquired command of the Mediterranean, by securing 
from Spain the fortress of Gibraltar and the island of Minorca. 
Spain lost all her European possessions outside her own peninsula, 
ceding her Netherland provinces, the kingdom of Sicily, and Naples, 
and the great Duchy of Milan in North Italy, to Austria. This 
last was the beginning of an Austrian control in Italy which was 
to prove pernicious for two centuries. 

, Louis XIV dazzled the men of his age, and won the title Exhaustion 
of the Great King (Grand Monarque) ; but we can now see ° ranee 
that his aims were mistaken, even from a purely selfish view. 
His predecessors had fought for security against the hostile 
embrace of the Hapsburgs. After 1648, that danger had 
passed away Louis fought only to enlarge his borders. 

In this aim he was partially successful ; but his wars exhausted 
France and left the nation burdened with debt through the 
next century. At the close of his reign, the industry of France 
was declining under a crushing taxation, of which more than half 
icent merely to pay the interest on the debt he had created. And 
in his unjust attacks upon petty properties of his neighbors 
in Europe, he had wasted strength that might have intrenched 
France as mistress in Asia and America. 

Intellectually, however, France was now the acknowledged French 
leader of Europe. This continued to be true through the next j^ Etirope 
century. The court of Louis XIV was the model on which every 
court in Europe, large or small, sought to form itself. French 
thought, French fashions, the French language, spread over 
Europe and became the common property of all polite society. 



234 THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV 

This admiration for France was due partly to an outburst 
of French poetry at this time. It was the first great age in 
French Hterature. The leading authors were the dramatists, 
Corneille, Racine, and MoHere. A striking iUustration of the 
influence of this French literature is that a great English school 
of writers modeled themselves upon it — the body of 
"correct poets," of whom Pope is the most famous member. 
At the same time, this literature was brilliant and sparkling, 
rather than great. " The work is not constructive, but imitative 
It is not free and strong, but careful and studied." 
The age of "/ am the state" is a famous saying ascribed to Louis XIV. 
espots Whether he said it or not, he might have done so with perfect 

truth. So might almost any monarch of his day, outside of 
England. Monarchs were everything ; the people, so far as 
government was concerned, were nothing. Louis called the 
English Parliament "an intolerable evil." If England and 
Holland had not withstood his ambitious dreams of empire, free 
government would then have perished from the earth. 



CHAPTER X 

THE RISE OF RUSSIA 

The South-Slavs (Serbs and Bulgarians), we have noticed, 
were long kept down by Turkish conquest (p. 121). In like 
fashion, the Slavs of Russia for some centuries remained 
backward because of even more cruel conquest by savage and 
heathen Tartars. 

Early Russian history is a blank or a mass of doubtful legends. Russia 

We know onlv that before the vear 900, there was a prince at *°^ *^® 

1- " 1 Ti • oi <• XT Tartar 

Moscow ruhng over the Russian Slavs from Novgorod to Conquest 

Kiev. Toward the close of the next century, Greek Christianity 
was introduced from Constantinople, and Greek civilization 
began slowly to make progress among the Russians. But 
Russia was exposed to danger from the east. Geographi- 
cally it is merely a small part of the vast plain stretching across 
northern Asia, peopled in that daj' by savage nomad tribes of 
Tartars. About 1200, a great military leader appeared in 
Asia among these Tartars. Taking the title Genghis Khan 
(Lord of Lords) he organizled the scattered nomad tribes into a 
terrible fighting machine, and set out to conquer the world. 
The ancient Scythian and Hunnish invasions were repeated 
upon a larger scale and with greater horrors. Genghis turned 
fertile countries into deserts and populous districts into tombs, 
marked by enormous pyramids of blackened corpses. He 
conquered China, northern India, and Persia, while his son 
invaded Europe. In 1223 the rising Christian state of Russia 
was crushed, and the Mongol empire reached from Peking 
and the Indus to Crimea and the Dnieper. 

The death of the Great Khan (1227) recalled his son to Asia, 
but, ten years later, the assault on Europe was renewed. Mos- 

235 



236 



THE RISE OF RUSSIA 



cow was burned, and northern Russia became a tributary 
province. Poland and Huhgary were ravaged and conqifered. 
Half of Europe became Tartar, and these new Huns even 




Church of St. Basil, Moscow, built in the reign of Ivan the Terrible 
(1554-1557). The building was painted brilliantly in all the colors of 
the rainbow. 

crossed the Danube. But again Western Europe was saved 
from a greater peril than Turkish conquest by the death of a 
Mongol emperor. Soon afterward the vast Tartar realm fell 



PETER THE GREAT 237 

into fragments, and the pressing danger passed away. For 
three centuries, however, a Tartar state, the Golden Horde, 
maintained itself in southern Russia ; and the whole later 
development of Russia has felt the baleful influence of Tartar 
dominion. 

In 1480 a tributary Russian prince threw off the Tartar yoke, Ivan the 
and one of his near successors, Ivan the Terrible, took the title ®"^ ® 
Tsar (from Caesar, the old Roman title for an emperor). Under 
this Ivan, by 1550, when the religious wars were beginning in 
Western Europe, Russia reached from the inland Caspian 
northward and westward over much of the vast eastern plain 
of Europe, stretching even into Asiatic Siberia. But it had 
no seacoast except on the ice-locked Arctic, and no touch 
with Western Europe. Tartars and Turks still shut it off 
from the Black Sea ; the Swedes shut it from the Baltic 
(p. 177) ; and the Poles prevented any contact with Germany. 

Thus the Russians were really Asiatic in geography. The 
tsars imitated the Tartar khans in their rule and court. The 
people were Asiatic in dress, manners, and thought. They 
belonged to the Greek church ; but they had no other tie with 
European life. 

To make this Russia a European Power was the work of Peter Peter the 
the Great. Peter was a barbaric genius of tremendous energy, ^''®" 
clear intellect, and ruthless will. He admired the material 
results of Western civilization, and he determined to Europeanize 
his people. As steps toward this, he meant to get the Baltic 
coast from Sweden, and the Black Sea from the Turks, so as to 
have "windows to look out upon Europe." 

Early in his reign, the young Tsar decided to learn more 
about the Western world he had admired at a distance. In 
Holland, as a workman in the navy yards, he studied shipbuild- 
ing. He visited most of the countries of the West, impressing 
all who met him with his insatiable voracity for information. 
He inspected cutleries, museums, manufactories, arsenals, 
departments of government, military organizations. He col- 
lected instruments and models, and gathered naval and military 



238 



THE RISE OF RUSSIA 



Peter 

" European- 

izes " 

Russia 



Expansion 
toward the 
open seas 



stores. He engaged choice artists, goldbeaters, architects, 
workmen, officers, and engineers, to return with him to Russia, 
by promises, not well kept, of great pay. 

With these workmen Peter sought to introduce Western 
civilization into Russia. The manners of his people he re- 
formed by edict. He himself cut off the Asiatic beards of 
his courtiers and clipped the bottoms of their long robes. 
Women were ordered to put aside their veils and come out of 
their Oriental seclusion. Peter " tried to Europeanize by Asiatic 
methods." He "civilized by the cudgel." The upper classes 
did take on a European veneer. The masses remained Russian 
and Oriental. 

Peter was more successful in starting Russia on her march 
toward the European seas. Oh the south, he himself made no 
permanent advance, despite a series of wars with Turkey ; but 
he bequeathed his policy to his successors, and, from his day 
to the opening of the World War, Constantinople was a chief 
goal of Russian ambition. 

The "Baltic window" Peter himself secured, by victory over 
Charles XH of Sweden, "the Glorious Madman of the North." 
Sweden was a thinly populated country with no great natural 
resources. For a century a line of great kings and the disci- 
plined bravery of her soldiery had made her a leading power in 
Europe ; but such leadership could hardly be permanent. She 
had grown at the expense of Russia, Poland, Denmark, and 
Brandenburg ; and when Charles XH came to the Swedish 
throne (1697) as a mere boy of fifteen, these states leagued 
against him. 

Charles was a military genius, and for a long time he was 
victorious against this overwhelming coalition. But he wore 
out his resources in winning victories that did not destroy his 
huge antagonists. Early in the struggle he defeated Peter the 
Great at Narva, with an army not more than an eighth as large 
as the Russian force ; but while Charles was busied in Poland 
and Germany, Russia recovered herself, and in 1709 Peter 
crushed Charles at Pultava. 



PETER THE GREAT 239 



Peter had said that the Swedes would teach him how to beat Peter 

reachc 
the Baltic 



them. Now this had come to pass. Sweden never recovered ^^^^ ®^ 



her military supreynacy. Russia secured the Swedish provinces 
on the east coast of the Baltic as far north as the Gulf of Finland. 
These districts had been colonized, three centuries before, by 
German nobles (p. 87) and German civilization was strongly 
implanted there. Thus the acquisition not onl}' gave Russia 
a door into Europe,) but actually brought part of Europe inside 
Russia. It was in this new territory that Peter founded St. 
Petersburg, recently renamed Pctrograd. 

The next important acquisition of territory was under the Later 
Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter, who seized part of Fin- ^q" g^Q 
land from Sweden. Toward the close of the century, under 
Catherine II, Russia made great progress on the south along the 
Black Sea and on the west at the expense of Poland (p. 249). 
This last change can be understood only in connection with the 
rise of Prussia. 



CHAPTER XI 



PRUSSIA IN EUROPE — ENGLAND IN NE^W TWORLDS 



Frederick of 
Hohen- 
zollem 
elector of 
Branden- 
burg 



The 

Hohen- 

zoUerns 

gain 

Prussia 



One of the German "marks" established in the tenth century 
as bulwarks against the Slavs (p. 87) was Brandenburg. Under 
a race of fighting margraves it grew from century to century, 
and about 1200 its ruler became one of the "Electors" of the 
Empire. In 1415, the first line of Brandenburg Electors ran 
out ; and Frederick of Hohenzollern, a petty count in the Alps 
(like the Hapsburgs a century and a half before), bought Branden- 
burg from the Emperor. The new family was to play the same 
grasping part in North Germany that the Hapsburgs played 
in the South. 

Shortly after 1600 came the next important acquisition of 
territory. By family inheritance, the Elector of Brandenburg 
fell heir to two considerable principalities, — the duchy of 
Cleves on the extreme west of Germany, and the duchy of Prussia, 
outside the Empire on the extreme east. Prussia was the name 
of a district which the Teutonic Knights ' had conquered in 
the fourteenth century from the heathen Slavs, and which they 
held as vassals of the king of Poland (map after p. 98). It 
had been partly colonized by Germans, but its people remained 
for the most part a mass of Letts and Slavs. 

Thereafter the Hohenzollern Electors ruled three widely 
separated provinces, — on the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Vistula 
(map, p. 248). The object of their politics tvas to unite these 
regions by securing the intermediate lands. 

1 One of the Orders of fighting monks (p. 93) that grew up during the 
Crusades. The head of the Order became Duke of Prussia. One of these 
dukes, who died without direct heirs, in 1618, was a distant relative oi 
the Elector of Brandenburg. 

240 



THE "GREAT ELECTOR" 



241 



Toward the close of the Thirty Years' War, Frederick William, 
" the Great Elector," came to the throne of Brandenburg — 
a coarse, cruel, treacherous, shrewd ruler. The Protestants 
were getting the upper hand in the war. Frederick William 
joined them, and, as his reward, at the Peace of Westphalia 
he secured eastern Pomerania. This brought Brandenburg to 
the sea. The king of Poland, too, was forced to surrender his 
feudal suzerainty over Prussia. Thus the Elector became also, 
as Duke of Prussia, an independent sovereign. 

The "Great Elector" now crushed out all local assemblies 
of nobles in his provinces, and all local privileges, making his 
rule as absolute as that of Louis XIV of France. Then he 
built up an army among the largest and best in Europe, much 
more costly than his poor realms could well support. He was 
shrewd enough, however, to see the need of caring for the 
material welfare of his subjects, if they were to be able to 
support his selfish plans; and so his long reign (1640-1688) 
marks the beginning of the boasted HohenzoUern policy of "good 
government." He built roads and canals, drained marshes, 
encouraged better agriculture, and welcomed to his realms, 
with their manufactures, the Huguenot fugitives from France, 
after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 

Frederick, son and successor of the Great Elector, was be- 
sought by Austria to join the alliance against Louis XIV (p. 231). 
In reward for his aid, he then secured the Emperor's consent 
to his changing the title "Elector of Brandenburg" for the 
more stately one of "King in Prussia" (1701). The second 
king of Prussia, Frederick William I, was a rude " drill sergeant," 
memorable only as the stupid father of Frederick the Great. 
He did, however, expend what intellect he had, and what money 
he could wring from his subjects, in enlarging the Prussian army ; 
and he had a curious passion for collecting "tall soldiers" from 
all over Europe. 

Frederick II (" the Great ") ascended the Prussian throne in 
1740. In the same year the Hapsburg Emperor, Charles VI, 
died without a male heir, and Frederick began his long reign 



The " Great 
Elector " 
and the 
Thirty 
Years' 
War 



Paternal 
despotism 



The 

kingly 

title 



Frederick 
the 

Second's 
wars 



242 



THE RISE OF PRUSSIA 



England 
and France 
rivals for 
world 
empire 



The " Seven 
Years' 
War," 
I 756-1 763 



by an unjust but profitable war. The Emperor Charles had 
secured solemn pledges from the powers of Europe, including 
Prussia, that his young daughter, Maria Theresa, should suc- 
ceed to his Austrian possessions. But now, with his perfectly 
prepared army, loithout having even declared war, on a trumped- 
up claim, Frederick seized Silesia, an Austrian province. 

This high-handed act was the signal for a general onslaught 
to divide the Austrian realms. Spain, France, Savoy, Bavaria, 
each hurried to snatch some morsel of the booty. But Maria 
Theresa displayed courage and ability. Her subjects, especially 
the gallant Hungarian nobles, rallied loyally to her support, 
and, a little later, England and Holland added their strength 
to the Austrian side. This "War of the Austrian Succession" 
closed in 1748. Frederick had shown himself greedy and un- 
scrupulous, but also the greatest general of the age. He kept 
Silesia. Prussia now reached down into the heart of Germany 
and had become the great rival of Austria. 

Much more important, though less striking, was the contest 
outside Europe. In America a New England expedition cap- 
tured the French fortress of Louisburg. In India the French 
leader, Dupleix, saw the chance to secure an Asiatic empire 
for his country, and captured the English stations in that 
country. 

The treaty of peace restored matters to their former position, 
both in America and Asia, but the war made England and France 
feel more clearly than ever before that they were rivals for vast 
realms outside Europe. Whether Prussia or Austria were to 
possess Silesia, whether France or Austria were to hold the 
Netherlands, were questions wholly insignificant in comparison 
with the mightier question as to what race and what political 
ideas should hold the New Worlds. 

In 1756 Austria began a war of revenge. Maria Theresa 
had secured the alliance of Russia, Sweden, and even of her 
old enemy, France. Four great armies invaded Prussia from 
different directions, and Frederick's throne seemed to totter. 
His swift action and his supreme military genius saved his 



FREDERICK II 



243 



country, in the victories of Rossbach and Leuthen. And the 
next year England entered the struggle as his ally. England 
and France had remained practically at war in America and 
India through the brief interval between the two European 
wars ; ^ and now that France had changed to Austria's side, 
England saw no choice but to support Prussia. 

In America this "Seven Years' War" is known as the "French 
and Indian War." The struggle was literally world-wide. 
Red men scalped one another by the Great Lakes of North 
America, and Black men fought in Senegal in Africa ; while 
Frenchmen and Englishmen grappled in India as well as in 
Germany, and their fleets engaged on every sea. The most 
tremendous and showy battles took place in Germany ; and, 
though the real importance of the struggle lay outside Europe, 
still the European conflict in the main decided the wider results. 

William • Pitt, the English minister, who was working to England 
build up a great British empire, declared that in Germany he Y!^^ . 
would conquer America from France. He did so. England and India 
furnished the funds and her navy swept the seas. Frederick ^"""^ France 
and Prussia, supported by English subsidies, furnished the 
troops and the generalship for the European battles. The 
striking figures of the struggle are (1) Pitt, the great English 
imperialist, the directing genius of the war ; (2) Frederick 
of Prussia, the military genius, who won Pitt's victories in 
Germany ; (3) Wolfe, who won French America from the great 
Montcalm ; and (4) Clive in India. 

The story of the conquest of India calls for a brief outline. 
In that rich land of marvels, the struggle was not properly be- 
tween the French and English governments, but between rival 
French and English trading companies — who, however, were 
more or less backed by their governments. India had a 
densely settled population and an ancient civilization. The 
chief ruler over most of the mighty peninsula was a Moham- 
medan prince at Delhi, in the north, known commonly as the 
Great Mogul. Under him were numerous viceroys (Nabobs), 

' Braddock's campaign in America (1754) took place during this interval. 



244 EUROPEAN WARS IN AMERICA 

many of whom were really independent sovereigns in their huge 
districts. And, in the West and South, several Hindoo states 
kept their old independence under their native Rajahs. 

After 1600 this tangle of Indian government was complicated 
further by settlements of European traders with grants of 
privileges and territory from the Great Mogul or from some 
Nabob. By 1700, the French Company held many important 
posts, while the English had established themselves at Bom- 
bay, Madras, and Calcutta — ports widely separated even by 
sea. These English settlements were governed much as 
Virginia was for a while about a century before, by a company- 
of English merchants (the British East India Company) with 
its seat in London. 

Dupleix (p. 242) had built up a powerful league of native 
states on the side of the French, and had almost driven the 
English ou of India. But now he had been recalled by the 
short-sighted French government, and so the • ground was 
cleared for a great English leader. Clive was an unknown 
English clerk at Madras. The native Nabob of Bengal 
treacherously seized the English post at Calcutta, induced the 
garrison to surrender on the promise of good treatment, and 
then suffocated them horribly by packing the one hundred and 
forty-six Europeans in a small, close dungeon, the famous 
Black Hole of Calcutta, through the hot tropical night. The 
young Clive was moved to vengeance. He organized a small 
expedition of a thousand Englishmen and two thousand faith- 
ful native troops, and at Plassey (1757) he overthrew the 
Nabob's Oriental army of sixty thousand men. Soon after, 
English supremacy was thoroughly established. 

The Peace The treaty of peace, in 1763, left Europe without change. But 

of 1763 ^^ India, the French retained only a few unfortified trading 

posts. In America, England received Florida from Spain, 
and Canada and the eastern half of the Mississippi Valley frofn 
France. France ceded to Spain the western half of the Missis- 
sippi Valley, in compensation for the losses Spain had incurred 



VICTORY OF ENGLISH FREEDOM 245 

as her ally ; and, except for her West Indian islands, she herself 
ceased to he an American poiver. England had dispossessed 
her there as she had in India. 

Spain still held South America and half North America ; 
but her vast bulk was plainly decaying day by day. Holland's 
wide colonial empire, too, was in decline. England stood forth 
as the leading world-power. 

The struggle in America had really been a war, not between Why 

Montcalm and Wolfe, bid between two kinds of colonization. The ^^ *° 
•' ' •' won 

better kind won. IVIan for man, the French settlers were more America 
successful woodmen and Indian fighters than their English 
rivals ; but they coidd not build a state so well. They got a good 
start first, and they had much the stronger position. But, 
after a century of such fostering care as we described on p. 224, 
the French colonies did not grow. When the final conflict began, 
in 1754, France, with a home population four times that of Eng- 
land, had only one twentieth as many colonists in America as 
England had — 60,000 to about 1,200,000. 

Moreover, despite her heroic leaders, the mass of French 
colonists had too little political activity to care much what 
country they belonged to, so long as they were treated de- 
cently. French centralization did make it possible for a capa- 
ble governor to wield effectively all the resources of New France ; ^ 
while among the English there were interminable delays and 
disastrous jealousies. But the English needed to win only once. 
If Montcalm had conquered Wolfe, and had then been able to 
occupj^ Boston and New York, he could never have held them 
even as long as King George did a few years later. The colonists 
would have fought the French with vastly more determination 
than they did England in the Revolution. But Wolfe's one 
victory at Quebec settled the fate of the continent. 

The lack of political vitality and of individual enterprise in 
industry was the fatal weakness of New France. The opposite 

' The advantage was offset by a tendency to corruption which always 
threatens a despotic system. Says Parknian (Montcalm and Wolfe, II, 30), 
"Canada was the prey of official jackals." Of this his volumes give many 
illustrations. 



246 EUROPE IN AMERICA 

qualities made England successful. Says John Fiske : "It 
is to the self-government of England, and to no lesser cause, that 
we are to look for the secret of that boundless vitality which has 
given to men of English speech the uttermost parts of the earth 
for an inheritance ." 

The American Revolution is the next chapter in this series 
of wars. That war began because the English government 
unwisely insisted upon managing American affairs after the 
Americans were quite able to take care of themselves. Its 
real importance, even to Europe, lay in the establishment 
of an independent American nation and in teaching England, 
after a while, to improve her system of colonial government.* 
But at the time, France and Spain saw in the American Revo- 
lution a chance to revenge themselves upon England by help- 
ing the best part of her empire to break away. 

England did lose most of her empire in America ; but she 
came out of the war with gains as well as losses, and with 
glory little tarnished. She had been fighting, not America 
alone, but France, Spain, Holland, and America. Theodore 
Roosevelt has put finely the result and character of this wider 
struggle {Gouverneur Morris, 116) : 

"England, hemmed in by the ring of her foes, fronted them with a 
grand courage. In her veins the Berserker blood was up, and she hailed 
each new enemy with grim delight, exerting to the full her warlike 
strength. Single-handed she kept them all at bay, and repaid with crip- 
pHng blows the injuries they had done her. In America, alone, the tide 
ran too strong to be turned. But Holland was stripped of all her colo- 
nies ; in the East, Sir Eyre Coote beat down Hyder Ah, and taught Mos- 
lem and Hindoo alike that they could not shake off the grasp of the iron 
hands that held India ; Rodney won back for his country the supremacy 

' The English colonial .system in America had not been cruel or tyrannical 
nor seriously hampering in industry. Indeed, on both the industrial and 
political side, it was vastly more liberal than was the colonial policy of any 
other country in that age. But after Canada fell to England (p. 244), so 
that the colonists in the I^glish colonies no longer feared French conquest, 
they began to resent even the slight interference of the English government. 
The freest people of the age, they were ready and anxious for more freedom. 
Cf. West's American People, pp. 185-191. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 247 

of the ocean in that great sea-fight where he shattered the splendid 
French navy ; and the long siege of Gibraltar [p. 233] closed with the 
crushing overthrow of the assailants. So, with bloody honor, England 
ended the most disastrous war she had ever waged." 

The secession of the American colonies did not injure England, 
as Her friends and foes had expected it to do. The commerce 
of the United States continued to be carried on mainly through 
England, and, very soon, the new nation, with its growing 
wealth, was buying more English goods than the old colonies 




Crossed Swords of Colunel William Prescott and Captain John Linzee, who 
fought on opposite sides at Bunker Hill. A grandson of Prescott and a 
granddaughter of Linzee married, and the offspring of this marriage 
mounted the swords in this way " in token of international friendship and 
family alliance." From a photograph of the mounted swords, which are 
now in the room of tlie Massachusetts Historical Society. 

had been able to pay for. For her territorial loss, England 
found compensation, too, to some degree, in the acquisition of 
Australia. 

Just before the American Revolution began, Russia, Prussia, " Parti- 
and Austria united to murder the old kingdom of Poland, so p^^^ 
as to divide the carcass. The anarchy of Poland gave its neigh- 
bors excuse. The population consisted of about twelve million 
degraded serfs, and one hundred thousand selfish, oligarchic 
nobles. The latter constituted the government. They met 
in occasional Diets, and, when the throne became vacant, they 
elected the figurehead king. Unanimous consent was required 
for any vote in the Diet, — each noble possessing the right 
of veto. 

Under such conditions, the other Powers of Europe had 
begun to play with Poland at will. Catherine II of Russia 



248 THE AGE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT 




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THE PARTITIONS OF POLAND 249 

determined to seize a large part of the country. Frederick II 
persuaded Austria to join him in compelHng Catherine to share 
the booty. 

The "First Partition," in 1772, pared off a rind about the 
heart. The Second and Third Partitions (1793, 1795), which 
completed the work and "assassinated the kingdom," had not 
even the pretext of misgovernment in Poland. The Poles 
had undertaken sweeping reforms, and the nation made an 
heroic defense under its hero-leader Kosciusko; but the 
great robbers wiped Poland off the map. Russia gained far 
the greatest part of the territory, and she now bordered Germany 
on the east, as France did on the west. 

Plainly the true policy of the Germans, early and late, would 
have been the honest one of supporting the "buffer states" — 
Poland and Burgundy — against the greed of Russia and 
France. Failure to do so left Germany exposed to immediate 
attack by powerful enemies and compelled her to build up 
artificial frontiers of fortresses and bayonets. 

Frederick II had shown himself a greedy robber and a mili- Frederick 
tary genius. With brutal cynicism he avowed absolute freedom j,*^®^ „ 
from moral principle where a question of Prussia's power was in peace 
at stake. Success, he declared, justified any means. This 
faithlessness he practiced, as well as taught ; and his success 
made this policy the creed of later Hohenzollerns. 

But there was another side to Frederick's life, which, 
more properly than his war or his diplomacy, earns him his 
title of "the Great." Most of his forty-six years' reign was 
passed in peace, and he proved a father to his people. The 
beneficent work of the Great Elector was taken up and carried 
forward vigorously. Prussia was transformed. Wealth and 
comfort increased by leaps. The condition of the peasantry 
was improved, though, of course, they remained serfs ; and the 
administration in all its branches was made economical and 
efl&cient. Unlike all the earlier Hohenzollerns, Frederick was 



250 



THE AGE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT 



also a patron pf literature, though he admired only the artificial 
French style of the age, and he was himself an author. 

Frederick is a type of the " crowned philosophers," or " benevo- 
lent despots," who sat upon the thrones of Europe in the latter 
half of the eighteenth centxu"y, just before the French Revolu- 
tion. Under the influence of a new enlightened sentiment, 
created by a remarkable school of French writers (p. 260), 
government underwent a marvelous change. It was just as 
aristocratic as before, — no more by the people than before, — 
but despots did try to govern for the people, not for themselves. 
Sovereigns began to speak of themselves, not as privileged 
proprietors, but, in Frederick's phrase, as "the first servants 
of their states." 

Catherine of Russia, Charles III of Spain, Leopold, Arch- 
duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand of Naples, Joseph II of Austria, 
all belonged to the class of philosophic, liberal-minded, " benevo- 
lent despots," of this period. In Sweden and Portugal two 
great ministers sought to impose a like policy upon the kings. 
All these rulers planned far-reaching reforms, — the abolition 
of serfdom, the building up of public education, and the reform 
of the church. 

Frederick's genius and tireless energy accomplished some- 
thing for a time ; but on the whole the monarchs made lamen- 
table failures. One man was powerless to lift the inert weight 
of a nation. The clergy and nobles, jealous for their privi- 
leges, opposed and thwarted the royal will. Except in Eng- 
land and France, there was no large middle class to supply 
friendly officials and sympathy. The kings, too, wished no 
participation by the people in the reforms : everything was to 
come from above. When the "benevolent despots" had to 
choose between benevolence and despotism they always chose 
despotism. 

The most remarkable, and in some ways the greatest of 
these philosophic despots, was Joseph II of Austria, the son 
of Maria Theresa. His task was harder than that of any of 
his fellows because his realms were so heterogeneous, — 



THE BENEVOLENT DESPOTS 251 

peopled by Germans, Hungarians, South-Slavs, Poles, Bo- 
hemians, Italians, Netherlanders. Joseph sought to abolish 
the ancient local distinctions in these varying districts, to 
introduce one orderly government, with one official language 
(German), and within his new state to foster education, abolish 
monasteries, establish freedom of religion, and even to do away 
with serfdom." All noble and clerical classes, however, resisted 
him fiercely ; and Joseph died disheartened, dictating for 
himself the epitaph, "Here lies a king who designed many 
benefits for his people, but who was unable to accomplish any 
of them." 

The kings had failed to bring about sufficient reform ; and 
now, i7i France, the people were to try for themselves. 

Further Reading upon the subject of the last three chapters may 
profitably be confined to a continuation of that proposed at the close of 
Chapter vii, on the Expansion of Europe into the New Worlds. George 
Burton Adams' essay, "Anglo-Saxon Expansion," in the Atlantic 
Monthly for April, 1897, is excellent reading. For the great struggle in 
America, the student should read Parkman's Works, especially his Mont- 
calm and Wolfe and his Half Century of Conflict. The following biog- 
raphies, too, are good : Wilson's Clive, Malleson's Dupleix and Lord 
Clive, Bradley's Wolfe, Bright's Maria Theresa, Bain's Charles XII, 
Lyall's Warren Hastings, Morley's Walpole, and Bury's Catherine II. 

REVIEW EXERCISES 

1. Fact Drills. 

a. Dates with their significance : 1520, 1618-1648, 1640-1649, 1660 

1688, 1713, 1740, 1763, 1783. 

b. List ten important battles between 1500 and 1789. 

2. Review by countries, with "catch- words," from 1500, or from con- 

venient event of about that date, and review English history 
from Alfred the Great to the French Revolution. 

3. Make a brief paragraph statement for the period 1648-1787, to 

include the changes in territory and in the relative power of the 
different European states. 



PART IV 

THE FRENCH EEVOLUTION 

You must teach that the French Revolution was an unmitigated crime 
against God and man. — Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, in an address 
to teachers of history. 

The Revolution was a creating force, even more than a destroying one. 
It was an inexhaustible source of fertile influences. — Frederic Har- 
rison. 

The student may well bear in mind these opposing views as he 
studies the following chapters. 



CHAPTER XII 

ON THE EVE 

A true Italy had started for the world an intellectual revolution ; 

" revolu- Germany, a rehgious revolution ; now France was to start the 
political and social revolution in Europe. More than any of 
the earlier "revolutions" in history, too, the French upheaval 
deserves the name revolution. The English Revolution of 1688 
swept away a temporary interference with old lines of growth : 
it was a "conservative revolution," restoring the nation to an 
old groove. The American Revolution was merely a sudden 
step forward in a direction in which America had long been 
progressing : it did not change habits of life or of thought. But 
the French Revolution overturned and destroyed a society that 
had been growing up for centuries ; it cut loose from the past ; 
and it started France upon new lines of growth. 

I. THE ABUSES 

France had a population of 25 millions. One out of each hun- 
dred was a "privileged" drone — a noble or a clergyman. These 

252 



FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 253 

% 

two orders, together, owned half the soil and all the fine build- The 
ings. They had many "special privileges" by law, and were Privileged 
exempt from the most burdensome taxes. Moreover, they 
received, in pensions and in sinecure ^ salaries, a large part of 
the crushing taxes paid by the nation, besides taking directly 
from the peasant a fourth of his income in church dues and 
feudal payments. 

The privileged nobles rendered no service to society. They The 
had been useful in early times, but the kings now gave all °°"'®^ 
political offices to men of the lower classes, and the nobles 
themselves abandoned their remaining duty, as captains of 
local industry, to become mere courtiers. Said Arthur Young, 
an English gentleman who traveled extensively in France just 
before the Revolution, — " Exile alone forces the French noble 
to do what an English noble does by preference : to reside upon 
his estate, to improve it." 

The higher clergy, bishops and abbots, were all from noble The 
families, — younger sons who were provided for by office in ^ "^^ 
the church. They received immense revenues for doing noth- 
ing, — paying paltry sums to subordinates who did their work, 
while they themselves lived at court in idle luxury or vice. 
The village priests lived on mere pittances. They were not 
"privileged." They numbered many devoted men, and the 
Revolution found them mostly on the side of the people. 

The quarter million of privileged drones were supported by 
twenty-three miUiojis of unprivileged, overburdened workers, — the 
peasants and the workmen in towns. 

Arthur Young (above) describes bitterly the hideous wretched- The 
ness of the peasantry. Among other piteous stories, he tells Peasants 
of a woman whom he talked with on the road and whom he 
supposed to be seventy years old, but who proved to be only 
twenty -seven. Toil, want, and hard fare robbed the workers 
of youth and life. Famine was chronic in the fertile land of 
France, as it has been in Russia in recent years. Taxation and 

' A sinecure is an office to which no duties are attached ("without 
care"). 



254 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

feudal extortion discouraged farming. A fourth of the land lay 
waste. Of the rest, the tillage was poor, — little better than a 
thousand years before. The yield was a third less than in 
England. And if crops failed in one province, starvation fol- 
lowed, although neighboring provinces might possess abundance. 
Poor roads, and high tolls, and poverty, and the government's 
carelessness made it impossible for one district to draw relief 
from another. 

At other times, when things were not so bad, great numbers 
lived on a coarse bread made of bran and bark and acorns — 
because of which, says an official report of the time, " the chil- 
dren very commonly die." 

Conditions varied greatly, however, in different parts of 
France, and in some districts the peasants were fairly prosper- 
ous. As a whole they were far ahead of the peasants in Ger- 
many or Italy or Spain or Austria, though vastly below the 
English peasants. They played a part in the Revolution be- 
cause they had already progressed far enough to feel discontent 
and the ■possibility of further progress. 

A million and a half were still serfs, but these were nearly all 
in Alsace or Lorraine, — regions seized from Germany not long 
before (pp. 177, 230 ff.), where German serfdom still lingered. 
Elsewhere they had become free in person, and many of them 
owned little garden spots of land. 

But even when the peasant owned land, he owned it subject 
to many ancient feudal obligations. He could leave it, if he 
liked (with no chance to do better) ; and he could not be turned 
off so long as he made the customary payments in labor and 
in produce. That is, he had advanced out of serfdom to a state 
of villeinage somewhat like that of the English villeins before 
the Peasant Rising of 1381. Like them, a French peasant was 
oppressed by a lot of annoying and costly restrictions, which 
varied somewhat from place to place. In general, he could not 
sell his land without buying his lord's consent, or sell any of 
his crop except in the lord's market, with tolls for the privilege. 
Commonly, he could still grind his grain only at the lord's 



THE ABUSES 255 

mill, leaving one sixteenth the flour, and he could bake only 
in the lord's oven, leaving a loaf each time in pay. 

Most grievous of all the feudal burdens were the nobles' rights 
to hunt. The peasant must not under any circumstances 
injure the rabbits or pigeons or deer that devoured his crop ; 
but the nobles at will might ride over the crops to chase the 
game. On penalty of death, the peasant might not carry a 
gun, even to kill wolves. He could not enter his own field, 
to till it, when the pheasants were hatching or the rabbits were 
young. Year after year the crops were trampled by huntsmen 
or devoured by game. 

In the towns the laborers were little better off than those Town 
in the country. Writers of the time describe them as pallid, 
haggard, dwarfed, — " sullen masses of rags and misery," 
huddled in garrets and cellars. The gild system of the Middle 
Ages had lost its usefulness, but remained, except in England 
(p. 185), with all its old power to interfere with individuals. 
Commonly it forbade a master to keep more than one appren- 
tice, or to sell any goods which he had not himself manufactured. 
A "cobbler" who mended shoes could not make new ones. A 
baker could make bread, but not cakes. A hatter in Paris who 
improved his hats (and took trade from other hatters) by 
mixing silk in his wool, had his whole stock burned, because 
gild regulations ordered "pure wool" for hats. The "masters" 
decided when to admit journeymen to their class ; and if a 
journeyman ventured to manufacture by himself before being 
so admitted, the government sent him to prison or to the 
galleys, and seized his goods. In general, the gild regulations 
kept the poorer workmen from any chance to rise into the 
better paid trades, and hampered the prosperity even of the 
shopkeepers and small manufacturers. 

We have surveyed the narrow apex and the broad base of The 
society. Between the two came an important middle class, ^^^ ® 
composed of bankers, lawyers, physicians, men of letters, mer- 
chants, and shopkeepers (gild "masters"). This class was 
smaller than the "middle class" in England, but much larger 



256 



FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 



than in any other European country. It was to furnish most 
of the leaders of the Revolution, and, indeed, to make a revolu- 
tion possible. 



The immediate occasion for the Revolution was the bank- 
ruptcy of the government. The monarchy felt no responsi- 
bility to the nation, and so it spent money extravagantly, 
wastefully, wickedly. Louis XIV, we have seen, left France 
burdened with a huge debt. The cynical, dissolute Louis XV 
wasted as much in vice as his predecessor had wasted in war. 
Much of the rest of the revenue was given away in pensions to 
unworthy favorites and needy nobles, or stolen by corrupt 
officials. 

There was no "national " treasurer. All the receipts from 
taxation were subject to the king's order — as if they had been 
his private banking account. No report was made to the 
nation as to how taxes were spent ; but some facts leaked out. 
On the eve of the Revolution, three maiden aunts of the king re- 
ceived $120,000 a year for their food — most of which, of course, 
went to enrich dishonest servants. Some $17,000,000 went each 
year in grants to members of the royal family and in pensions. 
This amounted to about $50,000,000 in our values to-day. 

The treasury, emptied in these shameful ways, was filled 
in ways equally shameful. Taxes were frightful, but the 
privileged orders practically escaped them. The clergy were 
exempt by law, and the nobles escaped by their influence. The 
richest man in France, the Duke of Orleans, stated the case 
frankly. "I make arrangements with the tax officials," he 
said, "and pay only what I wish." Large numbers of the 
wealthier men of the middle class escaped also, often by purchas- 
ing exemption in the form of sinecure offices connected with 
the royal household. 

Thus payment was made only by those least able to pay ; and 
various clumsy devices made the collection needlessly burden- 
some even on them (p. 238). Two of the many direct taxes 
were especially offensive and oppressive. 



THE BURDENED WORKERS 257 

1. The peasant was compelled to leave his own work, no 
matter how critical the harvest time, at the call of an official, 
to toil without pay on roads or other public works. This labor 
tax was called the corvee. 

2. The chief tax had once been a land tax. This now was 
assessed only on peasant villages, and it had become a ivholly 
arbitrary tax, fixed each year by the government. On one 
occasion, an official wrote: "The people of this village are 
stout, and there are chicken feathers before the doors. The 
taxes here should be greatly increased next year." So, too, if 
a villager lived in a better house than his neighbors, the officials 
made him pay a larger share of the common village tax. So the 
peasants concealed jealously what few comforts they had, and 
left their cottages in ruins. 

It has been estimated that on the average a peasant paid 
half his income in direct taxes to the government. Feudal dues 
and church tithes raised these payments to over four fifths his 
income. From the remaining one fifth, he had not only to 
support his family but also to pay various indirect taxes. 

The most famous indirect tax was that upon salt.^ This The 
was called the gabelle. It raised the price of salt many times 
its first value. No salt could be bought except from the gov- 
ernment agents, and every family was compelled by law to 
purchase from these agents at least seven pounds a year for 
every member over seven years of age. This amount, too, was 
for the table only. If the peasant salted down a pig, he must 
buy an additional supply for that purpose. To make this 
absurd condition worse, the people in some districts in France 
had to pay twice, five times, or ten times as much by way of 
salt tax as did their neighbors in adjoining districts. Thousands 
of persons every year were hanged or sent to the galleys for 
trying to evade the tax. 

This salt tax was " farmed " to collectors, who paid the govern- 

' The man who sold the salt paid the tax to the government. The man 
who bought salt had of course to pay back the tax in a higher price. A tax 
collected in this way is called an indirect tax. 



salt tax 



258 



FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 



ment a certain amount down, and then secured what they 
could get above that amount for their own profit. Only one 
fifth the amount collected reached the treasury. Many other 
indirect taxes — on candles, fuel, grain, and flour — were 
farmed out in similar fashion. 

Another class of vexatious indirect taxes were the tolls 
and tariff's on goods. These payments were required not only at 
the frontier of France, but again and again, at the border of 
each province and even at the gate of each town, as the goods 
traveled through the country. Workmen who crossed a river 
from their homes in one district to their day's work in another 
had to pay a tariff on the luncheon in their pockets; and fish, 
on their way to Paris from the coast, paid thirteen times their 
first cost in such tolls. 

The government was a centralized despotism (p. 19). Di- 
rectly about the king was a Council of State. Subject to 
the king's approval, it fixed the taxes and the levy for 
the army, drew up edicts, and indeed ruled France. Its 
ntembers were appointed by the king, and held office only 
at his pleasure. 

France was made up of about thirty districts, which corre- 
sponded roughly to the old feudal provinces. At the head of 
each such province was a governor appointed by the king. 
Subject to the royal power, he was an unchecked despot, with 
tremendous power for good or evil. 

In the parish the mayor or syndic was sometimes chosen by 
the people, sometimes appointed by the governor ; but the 
governor could always remove him at will. The parish assembly 
could not meet without the governor's permission, and it could 
not take any action by itself. Had the wind damaged the 
parish steeple? The parish might petition for permission to 
repair it, — at their own expense, of course. The governor 
would send the petition, with his recommendation, to the 
Council of State at Paris, and a reply might be expected in a 
year or two. Tocqueville declares {France before the Revolution) 
that in the musty archives he found many cases of this kind 



THE SPIRIT OF CHANGE 259 

where the original sum needed for the repairs would not have 

exceeded five dollars. 

The government could send any man in France to prison Arbitrary 

without trial, merely bv a "letter" with the roval seal. Such '™P"^°°" 
' »' - •■ ment 

"letters of the seal" were not only used to remove political 
offenders, but they were also often given, or sold, to private 
men who wished to remove rivals. The government of Louis 
XV issued 150,000 such letters. 

Usually the imprisonments were for a few months ; but 
sometimes the wretch was virtually forgotten and left to die in 
prison, perhaps without ever learning the cause of his arrest. 
Arthur Young (p. 253) tells of an Englishman who had been kept 
in a French prison thirty years, although not even the govern- 
ment held a record of the reason. Very properly did Blackstone, 
the English law writer, class France with Turkey as countries 
where " personal liberty " was " wholly at the mercy of the ruler." 

This centralized machinery was clumsy. It was complicated An 
by the fact that France was still a patchwork of territories Ijl^sooi^m 
which had been seized piece by piece by the kings. Each 
province had its own laws and customs, its own privileges and 
exemptions or partial exemptions, as with the salt tax. Voltaire 
complained that in a journey one changed laws as often as he 
changed horses. France was covered with shadows of old local 
governments, which had lost their power for action, but which 
remained powerful to delay and obstruct united action. 

II. THE SPIRIT OF CHANGE 

A revolution, it has been said, requires not only abuses 
but also ideas. The combustibles were ready ; so were the men 
of ideas, to apply the match. 

Science had upset all old ideas about the world outside man. The 
The telescope had proved that other planets like our earth 
revolved around the sun, and that myriads of other suns whirled 
through boundless space; and the English Newton had shown 
how this vast universe is bound together by the unvarying 
"laws" of unseen gravitation. The microscope had revealed 



revolution 
in ideas 



260 FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

an undreamed-of world of minute life in air and earth and 
water all around us ; and air, earth, water (and fire) themselves 
had changed their nature. The Ancients had taught that they 
were the "original elements" out of which everything else was 
made up. But the French Lavoisier, founder of modern chem- 
istry, had lately decomposed water and air into gases, and shown 
that fire was a union of one of these gases with earthy carbon. 

Such a revolution, in the way of looking at the material 
world, prepared men to ask questions about the world of men 
and society. Tradition and authority had been proven silly in 
the first field : perhaps they were not always right in the other 
field. England, with its freedom of speech and of the press, 
had led in this revolt against the authority of the past. But 
English writers were relatively cautious. Their speculations 
were carried much farther by French writers who quickly 
spread their influence over all Europe. About 1750 there began 
an age of dazzling brilliancy in French literature and scholarship. 
Never before had any country seen so many and so famous men 
of letters at one time. Of the scores, we can mention only four 
foremost ones — Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, and Rousseau. 

Voltaire, in 1750, had already won his fame, and he ruled as 
the intellectual monarch of Europe for thirty years more. 
He came from the middle class. As a young man, the king had 
imprisoned him for libel by a "letter of the seal"; and a dis- 
sipated noble, angered by a witticism, had hired a band of 
ruffians to beat him nearly to death. Some years of exile he 
spent in England, where, he says, he "learned to think." Most 
of his writing was destructive ; but the old in Europe needed 
to be swept away, before new growth could start. He had 
biting satire, mocking wit, keen reasoning, and incisive, vigor- 
ous style. So armed, he attacked daringly the absurdities in 
society and the superstitions and scandals of the church. 

He railed at absentee bishops of licentious lives ; he ques- 
tioned the privileges of the nobles ; and he pitilessly exposed 
the iniquity of the gabelle and of the "letters of the seal." 
The church seemed to him the chief foe to human progress; 



VOLTAIRE AND ROUSSEAU 



261 



and in his invective against its abuses he sometimes confused 
it with Christianity itself. So too did most of the other 
writers in this brilhant company. But !' their glory lies not 
in their contempt for things holy, but in their scorn for things 
unjust." Voltaire's powerful plea for religious tolerance and his 
lifelong exposure of the folly and wrong of religious persecution 
had much to do with creating the free atmosphere in which we 
live to-day. We must 
remember that many of 
his books were burned by 
order of the church and 
the government, and that 
he ran grave personal 
risks. Our American Low- 
ell says, "We owe half 
our liberty to that leering 
old mocker " ; and Pro- 
fessor Jowett of Oxford, 
an English Churchman, 
declares that Voltaire " did 
more good than all the 
Fathers of the Church 
together." He is often incorrectly called an atheist. He was 
not a Christian, but he was a deist, — a firm behever in a God 
revealed in nature and in the human soul. 

Montesquieu, in a famous book. The Spirit of Laws, contrasted 
French despotism with constitutional liberty in England. 

In 1751 Diderot and a group of companions published the 
first volume of the great French Encyclopedia, a work which 
was completed twenty years later, in thirty-seven volumes. 
The purpose of "the Encyclopedists" was to gather up all 
the results of the new science and new thought, and to make 
them known to larger numbers. In particular, they criticized 
religious persecution and the salt tax and like abuses in govern- 
ment; and on every occasion they wrote of the benefits of 
industry and commerce. Says John Morley, "They were 




Voltaire. — The bust by Houdon. 



262 



FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 



Rousseau 

and 

democracy 



Fashionable 
liberalism 



vehement for the glories of peace, and passionate against the 
brazen glories of war." The Encyclopedia has been called 
a "rising in battle array of all the men of the new era against 
all the powers of the past." 

Voltaire and his fellows admired the constitutional monarchy 
of England ; but they looked for reform rather from some 
enlightened, philosophic despot. One alone among them stood 
for democracy. This was Rousseau. He wrote much that 
was absurd about an ideal "state of nature" before men "in- 
vented governments" and created an "artificial civilization"; 
but he taught, more forcefully than any man before him, the 
sovereignty of the whole people. His most famous book (The 
Social Contract, 1762) opens with the words, "Man w*as born 
free, but he is now everywhere in chains"; and it argues pas- 
sionately that it is man's right and duty to recover^ freedom. 
Rousseau's moral earnestness and enthusiasm made his doctrine 
almost a religion with his disciples. He was the prophet of the 
political side of the coming Revolution. 

Some years before the French Revolution began, the 
ideas, and even some of the phrases, of Rousseau began 
to have a powerful influence in America. They did not 
create the American Revolution, but they helped that 
great movement to justify itself in words. Passages in 
the Declaration of Independence, and in many of the 
original State constitutions about natural equality and 
freedom, are popularly supposed to be due to American 
admiration for Rousseau. Rousseau, however, drew these 
ideas to a great extent from John Locke and other English 
writers of the seventeenth century ; and we cannot always 
tell whether an American document is affected by Rousseau 
or directly by the older but less impressive English 
literature. 

When the French writers began to attack hoary abuses, they 
ran extreme personal risks and played an heroic part. The 
same movement, however, that produced these men of letters 



LIBERALISM GROWS FASHIONABLE 263 

was at work in all social circles. The writers intensified the 
movement, and, before long, criticism of existing arrangements 
became general. Liberalism, in words if not in acts, became 
fashionable. 

Even the privileged orders began to talk about their own 
uselessness. When the great noble in a popular play was asked 
what he had done to deserve all his privileges, and when his 
lackey answered for him, "Your Excellency took the trouble 
to be born," the audience of nobles in the boxes laughed and 
applauded. 

Upon the whole, however, the mass of the privileged classes 
remained selfish and scornful. The chief influence of the new 
philosophy loas in its effect upon the unprivileged masses. The 
third estate became conscious of its wrongs and of its power. 
Said a famous pamphlet by Siej/es on the eve of the Revolution, 
" What really is the third estate f Everything. What has it been 
so far in the state? Nothing. What does it ask? To he some- 
thing.^' And at the time the privileged orders are often re- 
fered to merely as a "malign ulcer" which ought to be cut out 
of the social body. 

III. THE GOVERNMENT ATTEMPTS REFORMS, 1774-1789 

In 1774 the dissolute but able Louis XV was succeeded by the Louis XVI 
well-disposed but irresolute Louis XVI. This prince had a 
vague notion of what was right and a general desire to do it, but 
he lacked moral courage and will power. His weakness was as 
harmful to France as his predecessor's wickedness. He aban- 
doned the wisest policy and the best ministers, rather than 
face the sour looks of the courtiers and the pouts of the queen. 

The Queen was Marie Antoinette, daughter of the great Marie 
Maria Theresa of Austria. She was young, high-spirited, and 
lovely, but ignorant, frivolous, and selfishly bent upon her own 
pleasures. The king was greatly influenced by her, and almost 
always for evil. 

Reform began, and finally the Revolution began, because 
the royal treasury was bankrupt. When Louis XVI came to 



Antoinette 



264 



FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 



the throne, the national debt was some five hundred million 
dollars, a huge sum for that day, and it was increasing each 
year by ten million dollars more. This condition stirred Louis 
to spasmodic attempts at reform, and he called to his aid 
Turgot, a man of letters, a reformer, and an experienced ad- 
ministrator. 

Turgot had been a Provincial governor for many years, and 
had made remarkable improvements in his district. . Now he 
set about conferring still greater benefits on all France. He 
abolished the forced labor on the roads, the internal tariffs 
on grain, and the outgrown gilds with their tyrannical 
restrictions. "The right to labor," said his public proclama- 
tion on this occasion, "is the most sacred of all possessions. 
Every law by which it is limited violates the ' Natural Rights ' 
of man, and is null and void." He also cut down the frivolous 
expenses of the court, and curtailed the absurd pension list 
remorselessly. 

He planned other vast and far-reaching reforms, — to 
recast the whole system of taxation, to equalize burdens, to 
abolish feudal dues, and to introduce a system of public educa- 
tion : "a whole pacific French Revolution in that head," says 
Carlyle. But the nobles grumbled sullenly at the prospect of 
having to bear their proper share of taxation ; the courtiers 
looked black; the queen hated the reformer, who interfered 
with her pleasures ; and so Louis grew cold, and, after only 
twenty months, dismissed the man who might perhaps have 
saved France from a revolution of violence. 

All Turgot's reforms were swiftly undone; but, in 1776, 
Necker, another reformer, was called to the helm. Necker was 
not a great statesman like Turgot, but he was a good business 
man with liberal views, and he might have accomplished some- 
thing for the treasury if his difficulties had not been tremen- 
dously augmented in an unforeseen manner. In 1778 France 
joined America in her war against England (p. 246). The new 
" loans''^ to support the expense of the war increased the 

• When a nation sells bonds to raise money, the proceedin? is called a loan. 



NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY 265 

national debt, and made it even more impossible to pay the 
annual interest. 

Then Necker laid before the king a plan for sweeping reform, 
much along Turgot's lines ; but the universal outcry of the 
privileged classes caused Louis to dismiss him from office (1781). 

But Necker had let the nation know, for the first time, just how 
it was being plundered, and to what base ends. His "Plan" had 
been accompanied by a "report" on the finances. This paper 
set forth plainly just how much money was raised ; by what 
taxes it was raised ; and how it had been spent — mainly on 
the court and its unworthy pastimes. This report was 
printed, and was eagerly read over all France by the middle 
class. 

Meantime, however, all the old abuses were restored for a Calonne 

time ; and a new minister of finance, the courtly Calonne, *?** V\® 

' Notables 

adopted the policy of an unscrupulous bankrupt, and tried to 

create credit by lavish extravagance. For some years this 

was successful ; but in 1786 the treasury was running behind 

to the amount of forty million dollars a year ! Even adroit 

Calonne could borrow no more money to pay expenses or interest. 

Under these conditions, the minister persuaded Louis to call 

together the "Notables of France." 

The Notables were composed of only such leading nobles and 
clergy as the king pleased to summon ; but they came from all 
parts of France, and they at least represented France better 
than the little clique of courtiers did. To this amazed gathering, 
Calonne, the pet minister of the court, suggested the hated 
plan of Turgot and of Necker, — that the privileged orders 
give up their exemption from taxation. It was necessary to 
get more money, and that could be done only by taxing those 
who had something wherewith to pay. But now all cried out 
against the minister, — the few Liberals for what he had done 
in the past, the many Conservatives for what he now proposed 
to do, — and Calonne, too, had to go. 

The Notables were still stubborn ; so the king dismissed them, 
and tried to force the plan upon the nobles by royal edict — 



266 FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

The as the only way to avoid bankruptcy. Before a royal edict 

of Paris ^^^ P'^^ ^" force, it had to be "registered" (put down upon a 

record) by a great law-court known as the Parlement of Paris 

— and afterward by like bodies in the provincial capitals — 

in order that the courts might know just what the law was. 

In a few cases in past centuries, the Parlement, instead of 

registering an edict, had sent it back to the king with a list 

of their objections, in hope of securing some modification. If 

the king was determined, however, he merely summoned the 

Parlement before him and ordered them to register — which 

always had ended the matter. But the Parlement, like the 

Notables, represented the privileged orders. It refused to 

register this edict even after the royal session, and cloaked its 

dislike to reform under the excuse that the only power in France 

which could properly impose a new tax was the States General. 

Louis banished the Parlement, but it had given a rallying cry 

to the nation. 

Demand for The States General (p. 86) had not met since 1614. Sug- 
States . . . . . 

General gestions for assembling it had been made from time to time, 

ever since Louis XVI became king. At the session of the 

Notables, Lafayette had called for it. Now, after the action 

of the Parlement, the demand became universal and imperious. 

Finally, August, 1788, the king yielded. He recalled Necker 

and promised that the States General should be assembled. 

A summary The chief institutions of France were : — 

^jjg (1) fl monarchy, despotic and irresponsible, but in weak 

Revolution hands and anxious to keep the good opinion of the nobles ; 

(2) an aristocracy, wealthy, privileged, corrupt, skeptical ; 

(3) an established church,, wealthy and often corrupt. 
Below, spread the masses, a necessary but ugly substructure. 
Like conditions existed over the continent. In France, as 

compared with the other large countries, the nobles had fewer 
duties, the peasantry had risen somewhat, and more of a middle 
class had grown up. That is, feudal society was more decayed, 
and the industrial state was more advanced, than in other con- 



LAFAYETTE DEMANDS THE STATES GENERAL 267 

tinental countries. This explains why the Revolution came 
in France. Revolutions break through in the weakest spots. 

First among the causes of the Revolution, we must put the 
unjust privileges of the small upper class and the crushing 
burdens borne by the great non-privileged mass. These evils 
were no greater than for centuries before, but the consciousness 
of them was greater. Not only was the system bad, but men 
knew that it was bad. The masses were beginning to demand 
reform, and the privileged classes and the government had 
begun to distrust their rights. Their power of resistance was 
weakened by such doubts. This new intellectual condition was 
due primarily to the new school of French men of letters. 

The bankruptcy of the national treasury opened the way for 
other forces to act. It started the government itself upon 
the path of reform ; and the inefficiency and indecision of the 
government led the people finally to seize upon the reform move- 
ment themselves, — a result greatly hastened by the political 
doctrines made popular just before by Rousseau. 

The American Revolution helped directly to bring on the 
French Revolution by sinking the French monarchy more 
hopelessly into bankruptcy. In other indirect ways the Ameri- 
can movement contributed to that in France. Lafayette 
and other young nobles who had served in America came home 
with liberal ideas strengthened ; and the French regiments 
that had fought side by side with the American yeomanry had 
imbibed democratic ideas and were soon to declare themselves 
"the army of the nation," not of the king. Said Arthur Young 
in 1789, "The American Revolution has laid the foundation 
for another one in France." 

Further, to run a centralized despotism with real success 
calls for a Caesar or a Napoleon. But hereditary monarchy 
in Europe in the eighteenth century had ceased to furnish 
great rulers. The American Jefferson, with some exaggeration, 
wrote from Paris in 1787 that not a king in Europe had ability 
needful to fit him for a Virginia vestryman. Louis XIV had 
been a tireless worker. But the selfish, indolent Louis XV 



268 FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

said to his favorite, "Let the good machine run itself. It 
will last our time. After us, the deluge." On his deathbed, 
the same shameless king said, — "I should like very much to 
see how Berry will pull through." Under "Berry" (Louis 
XVI), the "machine" went to pieces and the "deluge" came. 

For Further Reading. — Source material may be found in Robin- 
son's Readings, including some extracts from French men of letters of 
this age. 

Modern Accounts: Shailer Mathews' French Revolution, 1-110, is 
the best one account. Mrs. Gardiner's French Revolution, 1-32, is 
very good. The student should certainly read either one of these, or 
the somewhat longer account in Lowell's Eve of the French Revolution. 
If the student can read further still, there is nothing better or more 
interesting than John Morley's Lives of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, 
and his essays in YA?,' Miscellanies on "France in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury" and on "Turgot." Say's Turgot is a good biography. 



CHAPTER XIII 



THE REVOLUTION IN TIME OF PEACE 



MAY TO AUGUST, 1789: THE ASSEMBLY AT VERSAILLES 

In electing the States General, the country was divided 
into districts. The nobility and clergy of each district came 
together to choose delegates. The delegates of the third estate 
were elected indirectly by "electoral colleges." In choosing 
these colleges, all taxpayers had a voice. 

But before the elections, two points had been widely and 
earnestly discussed in France. The ancient States General 
had been a meeting of three "orders" sitting in separate 
"houses," each with one vote. For the time to which France 
had now come, this was plainly absurd. Under such an arrange- 
ment the two privileged orders, representing only one hundredth 
of the nation, would have two thirds the vote, and would block 
all reform. Accordingly all Liberals, like Lafayette and Sieves, 
had urged (1) that the third estate should have twice as many 
members as either nobles or clergy ; and (2) that all three orders 
should sit together and vote "by head." The king had finally 
been induced to order the "double representation" for the third 
estate; but the second and vital point, the manner of voting, 
he had left unsettled. 

When finally chosen, the States General consisted of about 
600 members of the third estate, 300 nobles, and 300 clergy. 
Of this last order, two thirds were village priests. The dele- 
gates possessed no political experience; but the bulk of the 
third estate were lawyers, and, as a whole, the gathering was 
scholarly and cultured. 

May 5, 1789, the king opened the States General at Versailles.^ 

' Read Carlyle's account of the procession. Louis XIV had built a 
splendid palace at Versailles, — twelve miles southwest of Paris, — and this 
place remained the favorite residence of the French kings. 

269 



Election of 
the States 
General 



270 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



One house 
or two 



The 

" National 

Assembly '' 



The 
Tennis 
Court 
Oath 



The royal address suggested some reforms ; but it was plain 
that the king hoped mainly for more taxes, and enthusiastic 
Liberals were sadly disappointed. Even Neeker's three-hour 
address, which followed the king's, dwelt only upon the need 
for prompt action to relieve the government's financial straits. 

The nobles and the clergy then organized as separate chambers, 
after the ancient fashion. The third estate insisted that all three 
orders should organize in a single chamber, — where its member- 
ship (with some help from the liberal nobles and the priests) 
could outvote the other orders combined. There followed 
a deadlock for five weeks. 

But delay was serious. The preceding harvest had been a 
failure, and famine stalked through the land. In Paris, every 
bakeshop had its " tail " of men and women, standing through 
the night for a chance to buy bread. Such conditions called 
for speedy action, especially as the ignorant masses had got 
it into their heads that the marvelous States General would in 
some way make food plenty. 

Finally (June 17), on motion of Sieyes (p. 263), an ex-priest, 
the third estate declared that by itself it represented ninety-six 
per cent of the nation, and that, with or without the other 
orders, it organized as a National Assembly} This was a revolu- 
tion. It changed a gathering of feudal "Estates'' into an assembly 
representing the nation as one whole. Nothing of this kind had 
ever been seen before on the continent of Europe. 

Two days later, the National Assembly was joined by half 
the clergy (mainly parish priests) and by a few liberal nobles. 
But the next morning the Assembly found sentries at the doors 
of their hall, and carpenters within putting up staging, to pre- 
pare for a "royal session." Plainly the king was about to 
interfere. The gathering adjourned to a tennis court near by, 
and there with stern enthusiasm they unanimously took a 
memorable oath ^ neter to separate until they had established the 
constitution on a firm foundation (June 20) . 

? See Anderson's Constitutions and Documents, No. 1, for the decree. 
* See the text in Anderson's Constitutions and Documents, No. 2. 



NATIONAL ASSEMBLY DEFIES THE KING 271 

The idea of a written constitution had come from America. Six 
years earlier, Franklin, our minister to France, had published 
French translations of the constitutions adopted by the new 
American States. The pamphlet had been widely read, and 
much talked about. The instructions ^ of delegates to the 
Assembly had commonly called for a constitution. To make 
one became now the chief purpose of the Assembly. That 
body, indeed, soon became known as the Constituent Assembly. 

Now king and Assembly clashed. On June 23 Louis sum- Vacillation 
moned the three estates to meet him, and told them that they °^ *^® ^^^ 
were to organize as separate bodies, and to carry out certain 
specified reforms. If they failed to comply with the royal 
wishes, the king would himself "secure the happiness of his 
people." The people themselves were to have no real hand in 
the reform of their country. The weak king had decided at 
last to play the impossible part of a "benevolent despot." 

When the king left, the nobles and higher clergy followed. 
The new "National Assembly" kept their seats. There was a 
moment of uncertainty. It was a serious matter for quiet citi- 
zens to brave the wrath of the ancient monarchy. Mirabeau, 
a noble who had abandoned his order, rose to remind the dele- 
gates of their great oath. The royal master of ceremonies, re- 
entering, asked haughtily if they had not heard the king's 
command to disperse. "Yes," broke in Mirabeau's thunder; 
"but go tell your master that we are here by the power of the 
people, and that nothing but the power of bayonets shall drive 
us away." Then, on Mirabeau's motion, the Assembly decreed 
the inviolability of its members : " Infamous and guilty of 
capital crime is any person or court that shall dare pursue or 
arrest any of them, on whose part soever the same be commanded." 

1 Nearly every gathering for choosing delegates to the Assembly had 
drawn up a statement of grievances and had suggested reforms, for the 
guidance of its representatives. These cahiers (ka-ya') are the most valu- 
able source of our knowledge of France before the Revolution. See Penn- 
sylvania Reprints, IV, No. 5, for examples, or, more briefly, in Robinson's 
Readings. 



272 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



The 

dismissal 
of Necker 



FaUof 

the Bastille, 

July 14 



The king's weakness prevented conflict. Paris was rising, and 
the French Guards, the main body of troops in the capital, when 
ordered to fire on the mob, rang their musket butts sullenly 
on the pavement. The next day, forty-seven nobles joined the 
National Assembly. In less than a week, the king ordered the 
rest to join. 

However, the court planned a counter-revolution, and again 
won over the weak king. A camp of several thousand veterans 
was collected near Paris, — largely German or Swiss merce- 
naries, who could be depended upon. Probably it was in- 
tended to imprison leading deputies. Certainly the Assembly 
was to be overawed. July 9, Mirabeau boldly declared to the 
Assembly that this was the royal policy ; and, on his motion, 
the Assembly requested the king immediately to withdraw the 
troops. The king's answer was to banish Necker, the idol of 
the people, who had opposed the great policy. 

This was on the evening of July 11. About noon the next 
day, the news was whispered on the streets. Camille Des- 
moulins, a young journalist, pistol in hand, leaped upon a 
table in one of the public gardens, exclaiming, "Necker is 
dismissed. It is a signal for a St. Bartholomew of patriots. 
To arms ! To arms !" By night the streets bristled with bar- 
ricades against the charge of the king's cavalry, and the crowds 
were sacking gunshops for arms. Three regiments of the French 
Guards joined the 1 ehels. Some rude organization was intro- 
duced during the next day, and, on the day following, the 
revolutionary forces attacked the Bastille. 

The Bastille was the great "state prison," like the Tower 
in England. In it had been confined political offenders and 
victims of "letters of the seal." It was a syml)ol of the "Old 
Regime," and an object of detestation to the liberals. It had 
been used as an arsenal, and the rebels went to it at first only 
to demand arms. Refused admission and fired upon, they made 
a frantic attack. The fortress was virtually impregnable ; 
but after some hours of wild onslaught, it surrendered to an 
almost unarmed force, — "taken," as Carlyle says, "like 



FALL OF THE BASTILLE 



273 



Jericho, by miraculous sound." Then the hangers-on of the 
attacking force massacred the garrison, and paraded their heads 
on pikes through the streets. 

Out at Versailles, Louis, who had spent the day hunting and 
had retired early, was awakened to hear the news. " What ! a 
riot, then?" said he. "No, Sire," replied the messenger; "a 
revolution." The anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille 
(July 14) is still celebrated in France as the birthday of political 
liberty, like our July 4. 




Fall of the Bastille. 



FiDin an old print of a drawing by 
Prieur. 



This rising of Paris had saved the Assembly. The most Local 
hated of the courtiers fled from France in terror. The king *""''^ ^ 
visited Paris, sanctioned all that had been done, sent away his 
troops, accepted the tricolor (red, white, and blue), the badge of 
the Revolution, as the national colors, and recalled Necker. 



The fall of the Bastille gave the signal for a brief mob-rule 
over all France. In towns the mobs demolished local "bas- 
tilles." In the country the lower peasantry and bands of vaga- 
bonds plundered and demolished castles, seeking especially 



274 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



The middle 
class 

reorganize 
society 



to destroy the court rolls with the records of servile dues, and 
to slay the hated deer and pigeons. 

Each district had its carnival of plunder and bloodshed. The 
king could not enforce the law : the machinery of the old royal 
government had collapsed. The Assembly did not dare inter- 
fere vigorously, because it might need the mob again for its own 
protection. Six days after the fall of the Bastille, the moderate 
Liberals proposed to issue a proclamation denouncing popular 
violence. From an obscure seat on the Extreme-Left, Robes- 
pierre, then an unknown deputy, protested vehemently : " Re- 
volt? This revolt is liberty. To-morrow the shameful plots 
against us may be renewed, and who will then repulse them if 
we declare rebels the men who have rushed to our protection ! " 

But everywhere the middle class did organize successfully against 
anarchy — and so really saved the Revolution.^ In Paris, 
during the disorder of July 13, the electoral college of the city 
(the men who chose the delegates of Paris to the States Gen- 
eral) reassembled and assumed authorit;f to act as a Municipal 
Council. In other towns the like was done, and in a few weeks, 
France was covered with new local governments composed of 
the middle class. This was the easier, because in many cases 
the electoral colleges, instead of breaking up after the election, 
had continued to hold occasional meetings during the two 
months since, in order to correspond with their delegates in the 
National Assembly. 

The first act of the Paris Council had been to order that in 
each of the sixty "sections" (wards) of the city, two hundred 
men should patrol the streets, to maintain order. This, or 
something like this, was done in all the districts of France. 
This new militia became permanent. It took the name "Na- 
tional Guards," and in Paris Lafayette became the commander. 
Like the new municipal councils, the Guards were made up from 
the middle class, and before the middle of August, these new 
forces had restored order. 



• Compare the failure of the middle class in Russia in the Revolution of 
1917-18. 



ABOLITION OF PRIVILEGE 275 

Meantime, on the evening of August 4, the discussions of the August 4: 
Assembly were interrupted by the report of a committee on the ^^vae^e °^ 
disorders throughout the country. The account stirred the 
Assembly deeply. A young noble, who had served in America 
with Lafayette, declared that these evils were all due to the 
continuance of feudal burdens and to the special privileges of 
his class ; and, with impassioned oratory, he moved their instant 
abolition. One after another, in eager emulation, the liberal 
nobles followed, each proposing some sacrifice for his order , — 
game laws, dovecotes, tithes, exclusive right to military office, 
and a mass of sinecures and pensions. 

Every proposal was ratified with applause. Our American 
minister, Gouverneur Morris, was disgusted with the haste, and 
even Mirabeau called the scene "an orgy of sacrifice." On 
the other hand, the French radical, Marat, in his newspaper, 
The Friend of the People, cried out against any feeling of grati- 
tude. "Let us not be duped," he wrote. ' "When the lurid 
flames of burning castles have illuminated France, these people 
have kindly given up their old privilege of keeping in chains 
men who have already won their liberty by arms." But, on the . 
whole, the work was necessary and noble, and it has never been 
undone. The night of August 4 saw the end of feudalism and of 
legal inequalities in France} This was one reason why anarchy 
and riot was so easily suppressed in the provinces. Had the 
Russian nobles been equally wise and swift in 1917, the Russian 
Revolution might have been spared much extravagance and 
anarchy. 

In three months — May 5 to August 5, France had been revolu- 
tionized. The third estate had asserted successfully its just 
claim to represent the nation. Its favorite motto was the 
famous phrase — Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality. " Equality " 
it had won : the odious privileges of the aristocracy, and all 
class distinctions before the law, had been forever swept away. 
Toward "Liberty," much progress had been made: the local 

' Anderson, No. 4, and Pennsylvania Reprints, I, No. 5, give the decrees 
as finally put in order a few days later. 



276 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



units of the country had set up new popular governments, and 
had organized new citizen armies to protect them. And the 
Assembly was at work upon a new constitution for the nation 
at large. " Fraternity " has not yet been achieved in any land. 



The March 
of the 
Women, 
October 5 



TO SEPTEMBER, 1791 : THE ASSEMBLY IN PARIS 

Eyen after the new harvest of 1789, food remained scarce 
and some riots continued. To maintain order, the king brought 
a regiment of soldiers to Versailles. The "patriots," as the 
liberal party called themselves, feared that he was again plotting 
to undo the Revolution. Extravagant loyal demonstrations at a 
military banquet emphasized the suspicion. It was reported 
that young officers, to win the favor of court ladies, had trampled 
upon the tricolor and had displayed instead the old white 
cockade of the Bourbon monarchy. 

The men of Paris tried to go to Versailles to secure the per- 
son of the king, but the National Guards turned them back. 
Then (October 5) thousands of the women of the market place, 
crying that French soldiers would not fire upon women, set 
out in a wild, hungry, haggard rout to bring the king to Paris 

— away from the influence of the reactionary courtiers at 
Versailles. In their wake followed the riffraff of the city. 

Lafayette permitted the movement to go on, until there came 
near being a terrible massacre at Versailles ; but his tardy 
arrival, late at night, with twenty thousand National Guards, 
restored order. In the early morning, however, the mob broke 
into the palace, and the queen's life was saved only by the gallant 
self-sacrifice of some of her guards. The king yielded to the 
demands of the crowd and to the advice of Lafayette ; and the 
same day a strange procession escorted the royal family to Paris, 

— the mob dancing in wild joy along the road before the royal 
carriage, carrying on pikes the heads of some slain soldiers, and 
shouting, "Now we shall have bread, for we are bringing the 
baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's little boy." The king's 
brothers and great numbers of the nobles fled from France, — 



THE MARCH OF THE WOMEN 



277 



and many of these 150,000 "Emigrants" strove at foreign 
courts to stir up war against their country. 

The Assembly in Paris was no longer in danger of interference 
from the king, but during the two years more that it spent in 
making a constitution, it was threatened often with violence 
from the mob. The sessions were all open to the public, and 
the galleries jeered and hissed and threatened speakers whom 
they disliked. Sometimes, too, the mob attacked conservative 
delegates on the street. Ir^oon, nearly a fourth of the Assembly 
withdrew, declaring that it was no longer free. 

Political clubs arose, too, and became a mighty power outside 
the Assembly. The most important of these clubs was the 
Jacobins, which took its name from the fact that it met in a 
building belonging to the Dominicans. In Paris that order 
was called Jacobins, because its first home in that city had 
been at the church of St. Jacques. 

In this Jacobin club some of the radical deputies met to 
discuss measures about to come before the Assembly. Soon 
others besides deputies were admitted, and the club became 
the center of a radical democratic party. 

Lafayette tried to organize a "Constitutionalist Club," with 
more moderate opinions ; and various attempts were made at 
royalist clubs. But the clubs, like the galleries, were best fitted 
to add strength to the radicals. 

Meantime the Assembly divided into definite political parties. 
On the Speaker's right, the place of honor, sat the extreme Con- 
servatives, known from their position as the Right. They were 
reactionists, and stood for the restoration of the old order. 

Next to them sat the Right-Center. This party did not 
expect to restore the old conditions, but they did hope to 
prevent the Revolution from going any farther, and they 
wished to keep political power in the hands of the wealthy 
landowners. 

The Left-Center, the largest body, wished neither to restrict 
power to the very wealthy, nor to extend it to the very poor, 
but to intrust it to the middle class. In this group sat Mirabeau, 



Progress 
by the 
Assembly 
mob 
influence 



Political 
clubs 



Political 
parties 



278 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



Mirabeau 



Flight of 
the king 



Lafayette, and Sieyes. Both parties of the Center wished a 
constitutional monarchy. 

The Extreme-Left comprised some thirty deputies who were 
disciples of Rousseau. They wished manhood suffrage. In 
this group sat Robespierre. 

In the legislatures of continental Europe a like arrangement 
of parties is still customary. The Conservatives sit on the 
right, the Liberals on the left ; and they are still known as the 
Right and the I^ft. In England the supporters of the ministry 
sit on the right, and the opposition on the left, and the two 
parties change place with a change of ministry ; so in that 
country the " Left " and the " Right " are not party names. 

One man in the Assembly was really a party in himself. 
Mirabeau (p. 271) was a marvelous orator, a statesman of 
profound insight, and a man of dauntless courage. He never 
hesitated to oppose the mob if his convictions required it ; and 
often he won them to his side. But he had lived a wild and 
dissolute life, and so could not gain influence over some of 
the best elements of the Assembly. His arrogance, too, aroused 
much jealousy. Both Necker and Lafayette hated him. 

Mirabeau was resolutely opposed to anarchy, and he wanted 
a strong executive. After the "march of the women," he felt 
that the danger to the Revolution lay not so much in the king 
as in the mob. Thereafter, he sought to preserve the remaining 
royal power — and to direct it. He wished the king to accept 
the Revolution in good faith, and to surround himself with a 
Uberal ministry chosen from the Assembly. As the mob grew 
more furious, he wished the king to leave Paris and appeal to 
the provinces of France against the capital, — only, he urged 
especially, the king must not go toward the east, lest the people 
think he meant to flee to Austria. 

The king hesitated, and Mirabeau died (April 2, 1791), 
broken down by the strain of his work and by dissolute living. 
Then Louis decided to flee, not to the French provinces, but 
to Austria, to raise war, not against the Paris mob, but against 



THE CONSTITUTION OF 1791 



279 



France and the Revolution. The plot failed, because of the 
king's indecision and clumsiness. The royal family did get 
out of Paris (Louis in disguise as a valet), but they were recog- 
nized and brought back prisoners. 

This attempt of the king led to another popular rising. This 
time the purpose was to force the Assembly to dethrone the king. 
A petition for such action, and /or the establishment of a republic, 
was drawn up, and crowds flocked out to sign it at the Champs 
de Mars, — an open space near the city where a great celebra- 
tion of the fall of the Bastille had just been held. Some dis- 
order occurred. The municipal authorities seized the excuse to 
forbid the gathering, and finally Lafayette's National Guards 
dispersed the jeering mob with volleys of musketry. Many 
more people were killed — unarmed people, exercising merely 
the right of petition — than there were soldiers killed when the 
women and mob of Paris had marched upon Versailles two 
years before ; but those soldiers, whose heroism histories have 
chanted ever since, were largely aristocratic officers ; while 
this time the slain were merely workingmen and their wives — 
and history has had little to say about it. 

This "Massacre of the Champs de Mars" (July 17) marks a 
sharp division between the working class and the middle class. 
For the time, the latter carried the day. In the next six weeks 
the victorious Assembly completed and revised its two years' 
work; and September 14, 1791, after solemnly swearing to 
uphold the constitution, Louis was restored to power. 



" Massacre 
of the 
Champs 
de Mars " 



Split be- 
tween 
Bourgeoisie 
and the 
Working 
Class 



THE CONSTITUTION OF 1791 

First in the new constitution came a noble "Declaration of The 
the Rights of Man" — after the example of the Bills of Rights ^declaration 



in some of the American State constitutions. 



of the 
It proclaimed, — Rights of 
Man 

(1) "Men are born equal in rights, and remain so." 

(2) "Law is the expression of the will of all the 



IS tne expression ot tne will ot all the people. 
Every citizen has a right to a share in making it ; and 
it must be the same for all." 



280 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



A constitu- 
tional 
monarchy 
under 

middle-class 
control 



Attempt to 
" decen- 
tralize " 



And so on, through a number of provisions. It made all French- 
men equal before the law, and equally eligible to public office. 
It abolished hereditary titles and confirmed the abolition of all 
special privileges. It established jury trial, freedom of re- 
ligion, and freedom of the press. The great Declaration has 
justified the boast of the Assembly — that it " shall serve as 
an everlasting war cry against oppressors." ^ 

The Declaration of Rights cared for personal liberties. The 
arrangements concerning the government secured a very large 
amount of political liberty. There was established a limited 
vionarchy, with a large degree of heal self-government, under 
middle-class control. 

The Central Government was made to consist of the king 
and a Legislative Assembly of one House — since an "upper" 
House would have been likely to be strongly aristocratic. 
The king could not dissolve the Assembly, and his veto could 
be overridden if three successive legislatures decided against 
him on any measure. ^ A new Assembly was to be chosen each 
second year. 

Local government was made over wholly. The historic 
provinces, with their troublesome peculiar privileges and cus- 
toms, were wiped from the map. France was divided into 
eighty -three " Departments " of nearly equal size. The Depart- 
ments were subdivided into districts, and the district was made 
up of communes (villages or towns, with their adjacent terri- 
tory). The map of France still keeps these divisions. 

Each Department and district elected a " General Council " 
and an executive board, or " Directory." The forty thousand 
comniunes had each its elected Council and mayor. So much 
authority was left to the communes, that France under this 
constitution has been called " a loose alliance of forty thousand 

1 Read the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," in the Pennsylvania Re- 
prints, I, No. 5, or in Anderson, No. 5. 

« The new American States had just begun to try another way to limit the 
old absolute veto — permitting a two-thirds vote to override the President or 
governor. The French plan of a "suspensive" veto has been most popular 
in free countries in Europe. 



THE LAND TO THE PEOPLE 281 

little republics." France tried to go too fast toward "decen- 
tralization" ; and, as we shall see, the plan never worked. 

The franchise was not given to all, despite the second state- Graded 
ment quoted above from the Declaration of Rights. About ^^^^ ^^' 
one fourth of the men had no vote. A voter had to have enough for voting 
property to pay taxes equal to three days' wages of an artisan. 

Then these "active citizens," or voters, were graded further, 
according to their wealth, into three divisions. The first 
class could only vote. The second could hold offices in com- 
munes and districts, and be chosen to electoral colleges. Only 
the third, and wealthiest, class could be chosen to the higher 
offices. 

Thus political supremacy was secured to the middle class 
by two devices, — (1) graded property qualifications, and 
(2) indirect elections. Both these devices to dodge de- 
mocracy were used in the American States of that day. 
No American State then had manhood suffrage. 

In the disorders of 1789 people ceased to pay the old and National 

unjust taxes. It was some time before new ones could be '^^'^trol °^ 

the church 
arranged for. Meanwhile the Assembly secured funds by 

seizing and selling the church lands — more than a fifth of 
all France. 

When the government took the revenue of the church, of 
course it also assumed the duty of paying the clergy and main- 
taining the churches. This led to national control of the 
church. The number of higher clergy was greatly reduced, 
and the clergy of all grades were made elective, in the same 
way as civil officers. Unfortunately they were required to take 
an oath of fidelity to the constitution in a form repulsive to 
many sincere adherents of the pope. Only four of the old 
bishops took the oath ; and two thirds of the parish priests, in- 
cluding the most sincere and conscientious among them, were 
driven into opposition to the Revolution. The greatest error 
of the Assembly was in arraying religion against patriotism. 



282 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



The 

peasants 
become 
landowners 



On the other hand, vast good followed from the sale of the 
church lands. At first, sales were slow ; and so, with these 
lands as security, the Assembly issued paper money (assignats), 
which was received again by the government in payment for 
the lands. This currency was issued in such vast amounts 
that it depreciated rapidly — as with our "Continental" cur- 
rency a few years before. Serious hardships followed ; but in 
the final outcome, the lands passed in small parcels into the 
hands of the peasantry and the middle class, and so laid the 
foundation for future prosperity. France became a land of 
small farmers, and the peasantry rose to a higher standard of 
comfort than such a class in Europe had ever known. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE APPROACH OF "WAR 

SEPTEMBER, 1791, TO APRIL, 1792 

France had been made over in two years, on the whole with The 
little violence. The bulk of the nation accepted the result Legislative 
enthusiastically, except as to some portions of the new organiza- 
tion of the church. Most men believed that the Revolution 
was over. The moderate Liberals very largely withdrew from 
active politics, and did not even vote in the election of the new 
Legislative Assembly. 

On the other hand, a small but vigorous minority of radical 
spirits was dissatisfied with the restrictions on the franchise 
and with the restoration of monarchy. This minority pos- 
sessed undue weight, because of its organization in political 
clubs. The original Jacobin club had set up daughter societies 
in the chief towns all over France ; and these daughters were 
strictly obedient to the suggestions of the mother-club in Paris. 
No other party had any political machinery whatever. More- 
over, the Jacobins had the sympathy of the large class that had 
no votes ; and in many cases these " passive " citizens proved 
an important factor in the election, terrorizing the more con- 
servative elements by mob-violence. 

The Constituent Assembly had made its members ineligible 
to seats in the Legislative Assembly, where their political ex- 
perience would have been of the utmost value. The regulation 
was well meant — to prove unselfishness — but it was ex- 
tremely unfortunate. The seven hundred and forty -five mem- 
bers of the Legislative Assembly were all without experience 
in politics. They were mostly young provincial lawyers and 

283 



284 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



Democratic 
gains 



Girondists 

and 

Jacobins 



journalists ; and there was not among them all one great 
proprietor or practical administrator. 

Parties had shifted toward democracy. There was no party 
in the new Assembly corresponding to the old Right and Right- 
Center of the Constituent Assembly. The new Right corre- 
sponded to the old Left-Center. Its members were known as 
Constitutionalists, because they wished to preserve the con- 
stitution as it was. Outside the House this party was repre- 
sented by Lafayette, who, since the death of Mirabeau, was the 
most influential man in France. In the Assembly the party 
counted about one hundred regular adherents, but, for a time, 
the four hundred members of the Center, or "The Plain," voted 
with it on most questions. The Plain, however, was gradually 
won over to the more radical views of the Left. 

This Left consisted of about two hVindred and forty dele- 
gates, many of them connected with the Jacobin clubs. The 
greater part were to become known as Girondists, from the 
Gironde, the name of a "Department" (p. 280) from which 
the leaders came. They wished a republic, but they were un- 
willing to use force to get one. They feared and hated the 
Paris mob, and they wished to intrust power to the provinces 
rather than to the capital. The leaders were hot-headed, elo- 
quent young men, who spoke fine sentiments, but who were not 
fit for decisive action in a crisis. 

The members of the Extreme-Left, known from their elevated 
seats as the Mountain, were the quintessence of Jacobinism. 
This party wished a democratic government by whatever means 
might offer, and it contained the men of action in the Assembly. 



Foreign 
perils 



The new inexperienced Assembly, with its tremendous prob- 
lems at home to solve, was at once threatened also by foreign 
perils. The emigrant nobles, breathing threats of invasion 
and vengeance, were gathering in arms on the Rhine, under 
protection of German princes. They were drilling mercenary 
troops, and they had secret sympathizers within France. In 
the winter a treacherous plot to betray to them the great fortress 



THE DESPOTS INTERVENE 285 

of Strassburg all but succeeded. The danger was real. The 
Assembly sternly and properly condemned to death all Emi- 
grants who should not return to France before a certain date ; 
but the king vetoed the decree. 

And back of the Emigrants loomed the danger of foreign 
intervention. The attempted flight of Louis in June had shown 
Europe that he was really a prisoner. His brother-in-law, 
the Emperor Leopold, then sent to the sovereigns of Europe a 
circular note, calling for common action against the Revolution, 
inasmuch as the cause of Louis was "the cause of kings" ; and 
a few days later, Leopold and the King of Prussia joined in 
asserting their intension to arm, in order to aid their "brother." 

War was almost inevitable. The Revolution stood for a The 
new social order. It and the old order could not live together. ^^1*^°'"***"^ 
Its success was a standing invitation to revolution in neighbor- European 
ing lands. If the cause of Louis was "the cause of kings," so ^^^^ 
was the cause of the Revolution "the cause of peoples." The 
kings felt that they must crush it before it spread. 

The Legislative Assembly welcomed the prospect of war. The 
It demanded of Leopold that he disperse the armies of the Assembly 
Emigrants and that he apologize for his statements. Leopold war 
replied with a counter-demand for a change in the French gov- 
ernment such as to secure Europe against the spread of revo- 
lution. Then in April, 1792, France declared war. 

The insolent attempts of German princes to dictate the 
policy of the French people rightly aroused a tempest of scorn 
and wrath; but the, light-heartedness with which the Legis- 
lative Assembly rushed into a war for which France was so 
ill prepared is at first a matter of wonder. The explanation, 
however, is not hard to find. 

The Constitutionalists expected war to strengthen the execu- 
tive (as it would have done if Louis had gone honestly with 
the nation), and they hoped also that it would increase their 
own power, since Lafayette was in command of the army. 

On the other hand, the Girondists suspected Louis of being 
in secret league with Austria (suspicions only too well founded). 



286 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



Danton 



and they knew that France was filled with spies and plotters 
in the interests of the Emigrants. The nervous strain of such 
a situation was tremendous, and the majority of the Assembly 
preferred open war to this terror of secret treason. Moreover, 
the Girondists hoped vaguely that the disorders of war might 
oflFer some good excuse to set up a republic. 

The only voices raised against the war were from the Moun- 
tain and its sympathizers in the Jacobin club. Constitutionalists 
and Girondists were to find their ruin in the war they reck- 
lessly invited ; while the three men most active in opposing 
war — Robespierre, Danton, and Marat — were to be called 
by it to virtual dictatorship. 

Marat was a physician of high scientific attainments. He 
was jealous and suspicious, and he seems to have become half- 
crazed under the strain of the Revolution. Early in the days 
of the Constituent Assembly, his paper, "The Friend of the 
People," began to preach the assassination of all aristocrats. 
But Marat was moved by sincere pity for the oppressed ; and 
he opposed war, because, as he said, its suffering always fell 
finally upon the poor. 

Robespierre before the Revolution had been a precise young 
lawyer in a provincial town. He had risen to a judgeship, — 
the highest position he could ever expect to attain ; but he had 
resigned his office because he had conscientious scruples against 
imposing a death penalty upon a criminal. He was an enthusi- 
astic disciple of Rousseau. He was narrow, dull, envious, 
pedantic; but logical, incorruptible, sincere. "That man is 
dangerous," Mirabeau had said of him; "he will go far; he 
believes every word he says." In the last months of the Con- 
stituent Assembly, Robespierre had advanced rapidly in popu- 
larity and power ; and now, although without a seat in the 
Assembly, he was the most influential member of the Jacobin 
Club. He opposed the war, because he feared — what the 
Constitutionalists hoped — a strengthening of the executive. 

Danton was a Parisian lawyer. He had early become prom- 
inent in the radical clubs ; and next to Mirabeau he was the 



MARAT, ROBESPIERRE, DANTON 287 

strongest man of the early years of the Revolution. He was 
well named "the Mirabeau of the Market Place." He was a 
large, forceful, shaggy nature, and a born leader of men. Above 
all, he was a man of action. Not without a rude eloquence 
himself, he had no patience with the fine speechifying of the 
Girondists, when deeds, not words, were wanted. He opposed 
the war, because he saw how unprepared France was, and how 
unfit her leaders. When it came, he brushed aside these in- 
competent leaders and himself organized France. 

For Further Reading. — The best one-volume history of the 
Revolution is that by Shailer Mathews. Next comes Mrs. Gardiner's, 
somewhat more conservative and decidedly less interesting. There are 
excellent brief treatments in H. Morse Stephens' Revolutionary Europe, 
1789-1815, and in Rose's Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era. The 
best of the larger works in English is H. Morse Stephens' History of the 
French Revolution. Carlyle's French Revolution remains the most 
powerful and vivid presentation of the forces and of many of the 
episodes of the Revolution, but it can be used to best advantage after 
some preliminary study upon the age, and it is sometimes inaccurate. 
Among the biographies, the following are especially good : Belloc's 
Danton, Belloc's Robespierre, Willert's Mirabeau, Blind's Madam Roland, 
and Morley's " Robespierre" (in Miscellanies, I). For fiction, Dickens' 
Tale of Two Cities and Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three are notable. (The 
last half dozen titles pertain especially to the period treated in the next 
chapter.) Anderson's Constitutions and Documents and the Pennsyl- 
vania Reprints, I, No. 5, contain illustrative source material. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE REVOLUTION IN VTAR 

FALL OF THE MONARCHY: APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 1792 

The king's At the declaration of war, the French levies at once invaded 

Belgium (then an Austrian province, p. 233), but were rolled 
back in defeat. The German powers, however, were busy 
robbing Poland (p. 249), and a few weeks more for preparation 
were given France before the storm broke. During these weeks, 
the Assembly decreed the banishment of all non-juring priests 
(those who refused to take the oath to the constitution), many 
of whom were spies ; and it provided for a camp of twenty 
thousand chosen patriots to guard the capital. Louis vetoed 
both Acts, and immediately afterward he dismissed his Liberal 
ministers (June 13, 1792). 

Despite the veto, a small camp was formed, under the 
pretense of celebrating the festival of the destruction of the 
Bastille. Among the forces so collected were six hundred 
Marseillaise, sent in response to the call of the deputy of 
Marseilles for " six hundred men who know how to die." 
These men entered Paris, singing a new battle hymn, 
which was afterward chanted on many a Revolutionary 
battle field and which was to become famous as The 
Marseillaise. 

And the The populace was convinced, and rightly, that the king was 

June 2 using his power treasonably, to prevent effective opposition 

to the enemies of France; and on June 20 there occurred an 
armed rising like those of July and October, 1789. An im- 
mense throng presented to the Assembly a monster petition 
against the king's policy, and then broke into the Tuileries, 

288 



THE KING'S TREASONABLE VETOES 289 

the palace of the royal family, to compel the king to withdraw 
his vetoes. For hours a dense mob surged through the apart- 
ments. Louis was crowded into a window, and stood there 
patiently, not without courageous dignity. A red ' cap, sign of 
the Revolution, was handed him, and he put it upon his head ; 
but to all demands for a recall of his vetoes he made firm re- 
fusal. By nightfall the building was cleared. Little harm 
had been done, except to furniture ; and indeed the mob had 
shown throughout a surprising good nature. 

There followed an outburst of loyalty from the Moderates. Lafayette 
Lafayette, in command on the frontier, left his troops and *q^^® 
hastened to Paris, to demand the punishment of the leaders 
of the mob and the closing of the Jacobin Club. The middle 
class was ready to rally about him ; and, if the king had been 
willing to join himself to the Constitutionalists, Lafayette might 
have saved the government. But the royal family secretly 
preferred to trust to the advancing Austrians ; and Lafayette 
was rebuffed and scorned. He returned to his army, and the 
management of affairs at Paris passed rapidly to the Jacobins. 

France was girdled with foes. The Empire, Prussia, and France 
Savoy ^ were in arms. Naples and Spain were soon to join. ^tJ ^ 
Sweden and Russia both offered to do so, if they were needed. 
In July a Prussian army, commanded by old officers of Fred- 
erick the Great, crossed the frontier ; and two Austrian armies, 
one from the Netherlands and one from the upper Rhine, con- 
verged upon the same line of invasion. The French levies 
were outnumbered three to one. 

Worse still, the army was utterly demoralized by the resig- 
nation of many officers in the face of the enemy, and by a justifiable 
suspicion that many of those remaining sympathized with the 
invaders. Within France, too, were royalist risings and plots 
for risings, and the king was in secret alliance with the enemy. 

' This color had already supplanted the tricolor as the emblem of the 
working-class revolution. 

2 This state of North Italy included the island of Sardinia, and is often 
referred to by that name. 



290 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



Brunswick's 
Proclama- 
tion: 
July 25 



The queen — whom the Paris mob now began to hate, as " the 
Austrian Woman" — had even communicated the French 
plan of campaign to the Austrian invaders. 

Brunswick, the Prussian commander, counted upon a holiday 
march to Paris. July 25 he issued to the French people a 
famous proclamation declaring (1) that the allies entered France 
to restore Louis to his place, (2) that all men taken with arms in 
their hands should be hanged, and (3) that, if Louis were injured, 
he would "inflict a memorable vengeance" by delivering up 
Paris to military execution.^ 

This insolent bluster, with its threat of Prussian "fright- 
fulness," was fatal to the king. France rose in rage, to hurl 
back the boastful invader. But before the new troops marched 
to the front, they insisted uyon guarding against enemies in the 
rear. The Jacobins had decided that Louis should not be left 
free to paralyze action again, at some critical moment, by his 
veto. They demanded his deposition. The Girondists were 
not ready for such extreme action ; but the Jacobins carried 
their point by insurrection. 

Led by Danton, they forcibly displaced the middle-class 
municipal coimcil of Paris with a new government ; and this 
"Commune of Paris" prepared an attack upon the Tuileries 
for August 10. If Louis had possessed ability or decision, his 
Guards might have repulsed the mob ; but, after confusing 
them with contradictory orders, the king and his family fled 
to the Assembly, leaving the faithful Swiss regiment to be 
massacred. Bloody from this slaughter, the rebels forced 
their way into the hall of the Assembly* to demand the king's 
instant deposition. Two thirds of the deputies had fled, and 
the "rump" of Girondists and Jacobins decreed the deposition 
and imprisonment of Louis, and the immediate election, by 
manhood suffrage, of a Convention to frame a new government. 
Lafayette tried to lead his troops against Paris to restore 
the king. He found his army unwilling to follow him, — ready, 
instead, to arrest him, — and so he fled to the Austrians — by 
1 Anderson, No. 23, gives the Proclamation. 



THE SEPTEMBER MASSACRES 



291 



of Verdun 



And the 

September 

Massacres 



whom he was cast into prison, to remain there until freed by 
Napoleon's victories. The French nation at large had not 
desired the new revolution, but accepted it as inevitable. The 
nation was more concerned with . repulsing foreign foes than 
with balancing nice questions as to praise or blame in Paris. 

The rising of August 10 had been caused by the fear of foreign Surrender 
invasion and of treason at home. The same causes three weeks 
later led to one of the most terrible events in histor\'. The 
"Commune of Paris," under Danton's leadership, had packed 
the prisons with three thousand "suspected" aristocrats, to 
prevent a royalist rising. Then, on August 29 and September 2, 
came the news of the shameful surrender of Longwy and Verdun, 
— two great frontier fortresses guarding the road to Paris. 

Paris was thrown into a panic of fear, and the Paris volun- 
teers hesitated to go to the front, lest the numerous prisoners 
recently arrested should break out and avenge themselves upon 
the city, stripped of its defenders. So, while Danton was 
pressing enlistments and hurrying recruits to meet Brunswick, 
the frenzied mob attacked the prisons, organized rude lynch 
courts, and on September 2, 3, and 4 massacred over a thou- 
sand of the prisoners with only the shadow of a trial. ^ These 
events are known as the "September massacres." 

Whether the Jacobin leaders had a secret hand in starting 
the atrocious executions at the prisons will probably never' be 
known. Certainly they did not try to stop them ; but neither 
did the Assembly, nor the Gironde leaders, nor any other body 
of persons in Paris. Says Carlyle : " Very desirable indeed 
that Paris had interfered, yet not unnatural that it stood look- 
ing on in stupor. Paris is in death-panic . . . gibbets at its 
door. Whosoever in Paris hath heart to front death finds it 
more pressing to do so fighting the Prussians than fighting the 
slayers of aristocrats." 

The Jacobins, however, did openly accept the massacres, 
when committed, as a useful means of terrifying the royalist 

' The fairest account in English of these massacres is that by Stephens. 
II, 141-150. 



292 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



plotters. When the Assembly talked of punishment, Danton 
excused the deed, and urged action against the enemies of 
France instead. " It was necessary to niake our enemies afraid," 
he cried. "... Blast my .memory, but let France be free." 
The " f rightfulness " which the Prussians meant to use against 
all Frenchmen fighting for freedom, the French Jacobins did 
use to crush treason at home. 

Freed from internal peril, France turned upon her foes splen- 
didly. Danton became the leading member of the executive 
committee of the Assembly, and at once he infused new vigor 
into the government. "We must dare," his great voice rang 
out to the hesitating Assembly, " and dare again, and ever dare, 
— and France is saved!" In this spirit he toiled, night and 
day, to raise and arm and drill recruits. France responded 
with the finest outburst of patriotic enthusiasm the world had 
ever seen in a great civilized state. September 20 the advanc- 
ing Prussians were checked at Valmy ; and November 9 the 
victory of Jemmapes, the first real pitched battle of the war, 
opened the Austrian Netherlands to French conquest. Another 
French army had already entered Germany, and a third had 
occupied Nice and Savoy. 

These successes of raw French volunteers over the veterans 
of Europe called forth an orgy of democratic enthusiasm. 
The new National Convention met September 21 (1792), and 
became at once, in Danton's phrase, "a general committee of 
insurrection for all nations." It ordered a manifesto in all 
languages, offering the alliance of the French nation to all 
peoples who wished to recover their liberties; and French 
generals, entering a foreign country, were ordered "to abolish 
serfdom, nobility, and all monopolies and privileges, and to aid 
in setting up a new government upon principles of popular sover- 
eignty." ^ One fiery orator flamed out, — "Despots march 
against us with fire and sword. We will bear against them 
Liberty!" 

Starving and ragged, but welcomed by the invaded peoples, the 
1 The decrees are given by Anderson, No. 28. 



PEOPLES AGAINST KINGS 



293 



French armies sowed over Europe the seed of civil and poUtical 
liberty. The Revolution loas no longer merely French. It took 
on the intense zeal of a proselyting religion, and its principles 
were spread by fire and sword. 

When the new Convention met, the Constitutionalist party 
had disappeared.^ The Girondist leaders (the Left of the pre- 
ceding assembly) now sat upon the Right and seemed to have the 
support of the whole Convention, except for a small party of 
the Mountain, where sat Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, with 
the rest of the deputies of Paris and the organizers of the Revo- 
lution of August 10. 

On its first afternoon the Convention declared monarchy 
abolished, and enthusiastically established "The French Re- 
public, One and Indivisible." ^ 

The radicals were bent also upon punishing Louis. They 
were satisfied of his treason, and they wished to make recon- 
ciliation with the old order of things impossible. Said Danton : 
"The allied kings march against us. Let us hurl at their feet, 
as the gage of battle, the head of a king." The Girondists 
wished to save Louis' life, but their majority was intimidated 
by the galleries; and "Louis Capet" was condemned to death 
for "treason to the nation," and duly executed. This was the 
bloody answer of the Republicans to the silly Divine-Right 
doctrine of the European sovereigns that peoples were the 
property of their kings. 

Early in 1793 the Convention proposed a new written con- 
stitution for the Republic. This document was extremely 
democratic. It swept away all the checks of indirect elections 
and property qualifications, and made all citizens "equally 

1 Note the progress of the Revolution : the old Royalists who made the 
Right of the First Assembly had no place in the Second ; while the Constitu- 
tionalists, who had made the Left in the First Assembly, and the Right in 
the Second, had vanished from the Third. 

^ The student should keep distinct the three great assemblies : First, the 
Constituent Assembly (or the National Assembly) which made the first con- 
stitution ; Second, the Legislative Assembly, which declared war and called 
for the election of its successor by manhood suffrage ; and. Third, the Con- 
vention, which deposed Louis, declared a Republic, and made war on kings. 



The 

Revolution- 
ary propa- 
ganda 



The First 

French 

Republic 



Execution 
of the 
king 



Constitution 
of the 
Year I 



294 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



Treason 

and 

dissension 



sovereign." Further, it made all acts of the legislature subject 
to a "referendum." This Constitution of the Year I ^ was itself 
submitted to such a referendum, and was adopted by the nation. 

No country had ever had so democratic a constitution. 
Nor had any great nation ever before adopted its government 
by direct vote. Four years earlier, the much less demo- 
cratic constitution of the United States was ratified 
indirectly, — by State conventions ; and only two of the 
State constitutions had been submitted to the people. 

The constitution, however, never went into operation. The 
Convention suspended it, declaring that France was in danger, 
and that the government must be left free from constitutional 
checks until war was over. This was one of the first demon- 
strations in history of the fundamental truth that war is a 
despot's game, and that democracies can play it successfully 
only by ceasing, for the time, at least, to be democracies. 

France was indeed in danger. The execution of the king 
was one factor in deciding England, Spain, Holland, Naples, 
and Portugal to join the war against France, and it offended 
many French patriots. Dumouriez, an able but unscrupulous 
general, who had succeeded Lafayette as the chief military 
leader, tried to play traitor, in the spring of 1793, by surrender- 
ing Belgian fortresses to the Austrians and by leading his army 
to Paris to restore the monarchy. His troops refused to follow 
him, and he fled to the enemy; but Belgium was lost for a 
time, and once more the frontier was open to attack. 

1 The Convention adopted a new Calendar. September 22, the first day 
of the Republic , was made ' ' the first day of the Year Owe of a new era. ' ' There 
followed twelve months of thirty days each, and then five great holidays 
dedicated to liberty. Each month was divided into three decades, and each 
tenth day was a holiday (in place of the Seventh day of rest and worship). 
The months took their names from the seasons, — Vintage month. Fog 
month, Frost month, for autumn ; Snow, Rain, Wind months, for winter ; 
Budding, Flower, and Meadow months, for spring and early summer ; and 
Harvest, Heat, and Fruit months, to close the year. Holidays were no 
longer dedicated to saints, but to the plow, the cow, the grape, and so on. 
This is an interesting illustration of the way in which the Convention cut 
loose from the past. 



JACOBINS CRUSH GIRONDISTS 295 

Ever since the Convention met, dissension had threatened 
between the Gironde majority and the Mountain. The Moun- 
tain was supported by the masses of Paris. Outside the capital, 
the Girondists were much the stronger. They wished to re- 
move the Convention from Paris ; and the Mountain acciised 
them of desiring to break up the "Indivisible Republic" into 
a federation of provinces. 

The Girondists took the moment of foreign danger, in the The Giron- 
spring of 1793, to press the quarrel to a head. They accused '^ ^to'^he 
Marat of stirring up the September massacres, and persuaded Jacobins 
the Convention to bring him to trial. Then they were mad 
enough to charge Danton with royalist conspiracy. 

Danton, who was straining his mighty strength to send 
reinforcements to the armies of France, pleaded at first for peace 
and union ; but, when this proved vain, he turned savagely 
upon his assailants. "You were right," he cried to his friends 
on the Mountain, who had pressed before for action against 
the Girondists, "and I was wrong. There is no peace possible 
with these men. Let it be war, then. Thej^ will not save the 
Republic with us. It shall be saved without them, saved in 
spite of them." 

While the Girondists debated, the Mountain acted. It was 
weak in the Convention, but it was supreme in the galleries 
and in the streets and above all in the Commune of Paris. 
The Commune, which had carried the Revolution of August 10 
against the Legislative Assembly, now marched its forces 
against the Convention, June 2, 1793, and held it prisoner 
until it passed a decree imprisoning thirty of the leading Giron- 
dists. Others of that party fled, and the Jacobin Mountain 
was left in power. 

The fate of the Girondists has aroused much sympathy ; 
but the Jacobin victory was the only means to save the 
Revolution with its priceless gain for humanity. Says 
John Morley {Essay on Robespierre), "The deliverance 
of a people beset by strong and implacable foes could not 



296 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



wait on mere good manners and fastidious sentiments, 
when those comely things were in company with the most 
stupendous want of foresight ever shown by a political 
party." 



Gironde 
rebellion 
and foreign 
invasion 



And the 
Committee 
of Public 
Safety 



JUNE, 1793, TO MARCH, 1794; JACOBIN RULE 

Fugitive Girondists aroused the provinces against the Jacobin 
capital. They gathered armies at Marseilles, Bordeaux, Caen, 
and Lyons. Lyons, the second city in France, even raised the 
white flag of the monarchy, and invited in the Austrians, — 
whereupon the Girondists in the city threw down their arms, 
gallantly choosing death rather than alliance with the enemies 
of France. Elsewhere, too, royalist revolt reared its head. 
In the remote province of Vendee (in ancient Brittany), the 
simple, half-savage peasants were still slavishly devoted to 
king, priest, and hereditary lord, and they rose now in wild 
rebellion against the Republic. The great port of Toulon 
even admitted an English fleet and army. The Convention, 
with Paris and a score of the central Departments, faced the 
other three fourths of France as well as the rest of Europe. 

So far, the Revolutionists had been afraid of a real executive, 
as a danger to freedom ; but these new perils forced the Con- 
vention to intrust power to a great "Committee of Public 
Safety." Said one member, the Convention "established the 
despotism of liberty, in order to crush the despotism of tyrants." 
The Committee consisted of twelve members, — all from the 
Mountain. The Convention made all other national com- 
mittees and officers the servants of this great Committee, and 
ordered even the municipal officials to give it implicit obedience. 

The Committee were not trained administrators, but they 
were men of practical business sagacity and of tremendous 
energy, — such men as a revolution must finally toss to the 
top. In the war office, Carnot "organized victory"; beside 
him, in the treasury, labored Cambon, with his stern motto, 
"War to the manorhouse, peace to the hut"; while a group 
of such men as Robespierre and St. Just sought to direct the 



NINETY-THREE 



297 



and victory 



Revolution so as to refashion France according to new ideals 
of democracy and of welfare for the common man.^ 

Nearly a hundred "Deputies on Mission"^ were sent out 
to all parts of France to enforce obedience to the Committee. 
They reported every ten days to the Committee ; but, subject 
to its approval, they exercised despotic power, — replacing 
civil authorities at will, seizing money or supplies for the na- 
tional use, imprisoning and condemning to death by their own 
courts. Moreover, to secure energy in the management of 
the war, and to prevent further treachery like that of Lafayette 
and Dumouriez, two Deputies on Mission accompanied each of 
the fourteen armies of the Republic, with authority to arrest a 
general at the head of his troops. 

Never has a despotism been more efficient than that of the Order, 
great Committee and its agents. In October Lyons was "^°°.' 
captured. On the proposal of the Committee the Convention 
ordered that the rebel city should be razed to the ground. Toulon 
was taken, despite English aid, and punished sternly. Other 
centers of revolt, paralyzed with fear, yielded. Order and 
union were restored, and Carnot could send another million of 
men to join the armies of France. Before the year closed, 
French soil was free from danger of invasion, and French armies 
had taken the offensive on all the frontiers. Peril from without 
was past. 

"All France and whatsoever it contains of men and resources is put 
under requisition," said the Committee, in a stirring proclamation to the 
nation (August 23, 1793).^ "The RepubUc is one vast besieged city. 
. . . The young men shall go to battle ; it is their task to conquer ; 
the married men shall forge arms, transport baggage and artillery, pro- 
vide subsistence ; the women shall work at soldiers' clothes, make 
tents, serve in the hospitals ; children shall scrape old linen into sur- 
geon's Unt ; the old men shall have themselves carried into public places 

1 Stephens' French Revolution, II, 285 (and also his Revolutionary Europe, 
133) has an admirable account of the men of the Committee. A dramatic 
account of their meetings is given by John Morley in his Robespierre. 

2 They were "deputies" in the Convention, sent out by the great Com- 
mittee on special "missions." 

' The decree is given in full by Anderson. 



298 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

and there, by their words, excite the courage of the young and preach 
hatred to kings and unity for the RepubUc." 

"In this humor, then, since no other will serve," adds Carlyle, "will 
France rush against its enemies ; headlong, reckoning no cost, heeding 
no law but the supreme law, Salvation of the People. The weapons are 
all the iron there is in France ; the strength is that of all the men and 
women there are in France. . . . From all hamlets towards their 
departmental town, from all departmental towns toward the appointed 
camp, the Sons of Freedom shall march. Their banner is to bear 'The 
French People risen against Tyrants.' ... 

"These soldiers have shoes of wood and pasteboard, or go booted in 
hay-ropes, in dead of winter. . . . What then? 'With steel and 
bread,' says the Convention Representative, 'one may get to China.' 
The generals go fast to the guillotine, justly or unjustly. . . . Ill- 
success is death ; in victory alone is life. . . . All Girondism, Halfness, 
Compromise, is swept away. . . . Forward, ye soldiers of the Republic, 
captain and man ! Dash with your Gallic impetuosity on Austria, 
England, Prussia, Spain, Sardinia, Pitt, Coburg, York, and the Devil 
and the World ! 

"See accordingly on all frontiers, how the 'Sons of Night' astonished, 
after short triumph, do recoil ; the Sons of the RepubUc flying after 
them, with temper of cat-o-mountain or demon incarnate, which no Son 
of Night can withstand. . . . Spain which came bursting through the 
Pyrenees, rustling with Bourbon banners, and went conquering here and 
there for a season, falters at such welcome, draws itself in again, — too 
happy now were the Pyrenees impassable. Dugomier invades Spain by 
the eastern Pyrenees. General Mueller shall invade it by the western. 
'Shall,' that is the word. Committee of Public Safety has said it ; Rep- 
resentative Cavaignac, on mission there, must see it done. ' Impossible,' 
cries Mueller ; ' Infallible,' answers Cavaignac. ' The Committee is deaf 
on that side of its head,' answers Cavaignac. ' How many want'st thou 
of men, of horses, of cannon? Thou shalt have them. Conquerors, 
conquered, or hanged, Forward we must.' Which things also, even as the 
Representative spake them, were done." 

The " Long The Committee had not hesitated to use the most terrible 
Terror means to secure union and obedience. Early in September of 

1793 it adopted "Terror" as a deliberate policy. This "Long 
Terror" was a very different thing from the "Short Terror" 
of the mob, a year before. The Paris prisons were crowded 
again with " Suspects " ; and each day the Revolutionary tri- 
bunal, after farcical trials, sent batches of them to the guillotine. 



THE "TERROR" 299 

Among the victims were the queen, many aristocrats, and also 
many Constitutionahsts and Girondists — heroes of 1791 and 
1792. In some of the revolted districts, too, submission was 
followed by horrible executions ; and at Nantes the cruelty of 
Carrier, the Deputy on Mission, half-crazed with blood, in- 
flicted upon the Revolution an indelible stain. 

Over much of France, however, the Terror was only a name. 
The rule of most of the great Deputies on Mission was blood- 
less and was ardently supported by the popular will. In all, 
some fifteen thousand executions took place during the year of 
the Terror, — nearly three thousand of them in Paris. 

This terrible policy proved effectual. After tSvo months 
of the Terror, Paris was tranquil and resumed its usual life. 
There were no more riots and almost no crime, even of the 
ordinary kind. France was again a mighty nation, united and 
orderly at home and victorious abroad. Says Carlyle, — 

"Overhead of all of this, there is the customary brewing and baking. 
Labor hammers and grinds. Frilled promenaders saunter under the 
trees, white-muslin promenadresses, with green parasols, leaning on 
your arm. ... In this Paris, are twenty-three theaters nightly [and] 
sixty places of dancing." 

The Terror was a sure weapon, ready to hand in a moment 
of death peril to liberty. The Convention did not shrink from 
using it. That much may be said in explanation. Still the 
"Reign of Terror" remains a terrible blot on human history. 

At the same time it does not stand all by itself. John Mor- 
ley, a cultivated English scholar, calls it "almost as horrible" 
as the scenes the English enacted six years later in Ireland 
(p. 462) without such mighty reason. And it was far less ter- 
rible than the needless vengeance inflicted by. the conservative 
middle-class government of Paris in 1871 upon twenty thou- 
sand victims from the working class (p. 489), — over which 
the world shudders very little. 

A study of the Revolution must notice this bloodshed, but 
ought not to put much emphasis on it. It is not in any way 
the significant thing about the Revolution. Indeed, it was not 



300 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Violence the product of the Revolution itself, but of foreign war. The 

only an significant thing about the Revolution is the national awaken- 

incident ° ° i i • i • 

due to ing which swept away an absurd, tyrannical, society, founded 

foreign peril ^j^ ancient violence and warped by time, to replace it with a 
simpler society based on equal rights. Literature has been 
filled with hysterics about the violence. It is well for us to 
shudder — but there is no danger that we shall not, for those 
who suffered were the few who "knew how to shriek," and so 
arouse sympathy for their woe. The danger is that we forget 
the relief to the dumb multitudes who had endured worse tortures 
for centuries, but whose inarticulate moanings hardly attract at- 
tention in Mstory. As Carlyle justly says, not for a thousand 
years had any equal period in France seen so little suffering 
as just those months of revolution and "terror." 

Positive If the Convention destroyed much, it built up vastly more. 

Reform j^ made the Revolution a great and fruitful reform. The grim, 

silent, tense-browed men of the Committee worked eighteen 
hours out of every twenty-four. Daily, they carried their 
lives in their hands ; and so they worked swiftly, disregard- 
ing some niceties of detail, and cutting knots that did not 
easily loosen. While Carnot, "Organizer of Victory," was 
creating the splendid army that saved liberty from despots, 
his associates were laying the foundations for a new and better 
society. They were "organizing" civilization. 

Mainly on their proposals, the Convention made satisfactory 
provision for the public debt that had crushed the old mon- 
archy. It adopted the beginning of a simple and, just code of 
laws. It abolished imprisonment for debt and gave property 
rights to women, forty years ahead of England or America. 
It accepted the. metric system of weights and measures, 
abolished slavery in French colonies, instituted the first Normal 
School, the Polytechnic School of France, the Conservatory of 
France, the famous Institute of France, and the National 
Library, and planned also a comprehensive system of public 
instruction, the improvement of the hospitals and of the prisons, 
and the reform of youthful criminals. Said Dan ton, " Next 



FALL OF THE JACOBINS 301 

to bread, education is the first need of the people." As Shailer 
Mathews says, "No government ever worked harder for the 
good of the masses" ; and says H. Morse Stephens : 

"It is probable that as the centuries pass, the political strife 
. . . may be forgotten, while the projects of Cambaceres and 
Merlin toward codification, the plans of Condorcet and Lakanal 
for a system of national education, and Argobast's report on 
the new weights and measures, will be regarded as making great 
and important steps in the progress of the race. . . . The 
Convention laid the foundations upon which Napoleon after- 
ward built. In educational as in legal reform, the most im- 
portant work was done during the Reign of Terror." 

For Further Reading. — One of the histories named at the close 
of the last chapter ought to be used for library work as far as the close 
of this chapter. Carlyle also should surely be read. 

Exercise. — Instructive parallels and contrasts between the course 
of the French Revolution, as to violence and class divisions, with the 
course of the Russian Revolution of 1917-1918. 

RUIN OF THE JACOBINS, MARCH, 1794, TO MARCH, 1795 

The Jacobins had established their supremacy over all The 
other parties by the "Terror"; but after some months they break'up 
themselves broke up into factions. The Committee of Public into 
Safety continued to uphold the inner circle of its members (led 
by Robespierre) who had charge of carrying on the Terror ; but, 
outside the Committee, that policy was attacked violently 
from both sides. 

1. The Paris Commune, led now by the coarse Hebert, 
clamored for more blood. This group wished to level rich and 
poor by wholesale confiscation, and to execute all who might 
be feared as opponents of such measures. In Paris they carried 
another part of their program to success for a time. They 
closed all Christian worship, and substituted for the worship of 
God a "worship of Reason," with ribald blasphemy. 

This atheism aroused Robespierre to denounce the Hebert- 
ists in the Convention as dangerous to the Revolution. Twice 



factions 



302 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

the Commune had reversed the control of a National Assembly 
by insurrection. Now it tried a third time, but failed ; and 
Robespierre sent Hebert and his leading friends to the guillotine 
(March, 1794). 

2. On the other hand, Danton was weary of bloodshed. 
He was the only man in France whose popularity and influence 
rivaled that of Robespierre. For months he had been urging 
in the Convention that "Terror" was no longer needed, now 
that France was victorious without and tranquil within. And 
Dan ton's friend, Camille Desmoulins (p. 272), started a witty 
newspaper to criticize the policy of the great Committee, sug- 
gesting in its place a "Committee of Mercy," to bind up the 
wounds of France. In April Robespierre accused both men of 
"conspiracy," and sent them to the guillotine.^ 

Danton's danger had been plain, and his friends had urged 
him to strike first. "Better to be guillotined than to do more 
guillotining," he answered. As he mounted the scaffold, he 
faltered a moment .at the thought of his wife, whom he loved 
tenderly. But rallying, he said grimly to the executioner, — 
"Show my head to the people. It is worth while. They do 
not see the like every day." 
The rule of Robespierre, for the next three months, seemed sole master - 
Robespierre ^^ France. He reopened the churches, and offset Hebert's 
Festival of Reason by making the Convention solemnly cele- 
brate a "Festival to the Supreme Being." ^ He aimed to 
create a new France, with simple and austere virtues, like 
those Rousseau pictured in his ideal "state of nature." This 
he believed could be done by education. He secured from 
the Convention a decree for a system of universal public educa- 

* Just before the Revolution began, a humane Dr. Guillotin had invented 
a device (consisting of a heavy knife sliding down swiftly between two upright 
supports) to behead criminals. This "guillotine" was much more merciful 
and certain in its operation than the older custom of beheading by an axe 
in the hands, of a man. 

2 Marat had been murdered by Charlotte Corday. The story may be 
presented as a special report. 

^ Robespierre was not a Christian ; he was a deist, like Voltaire. 



FALL OF THE JACOBINS 303 

tion. The opening sentences of the decree read : " The rise 
of an oppressed nation to democracy is like the effort by which 
nature rose out of nothingness to existence. We must entirely 
refashion a people whom we wish to make free, — destroy its 
prejudices, alter its habits, limit its necessities, root up its \'ices, 
purify its desires. The state must therefore lay hold on every 
human being at his birth and direct his education with powerful 
hand." The most enthusiastic follower of Robespierre was St. 
Just ; and the fragments of St. Just's Institutes express the 
ardent hopes of these Terrorists. 

Boys of seven were to be handed over to the "school of the nation," to 
be trained "to endure hardship and to speak Uttle." Neither servants 
nor gold or silver vessels were to be permitted. The nation was to 
possess "the happiness of virtue, of moderation, of comfort, — the 
happiness that springs from the enjoyment of the necessary without the 
superfluous. The luxury of a cabin and of a field fertilized by your own 
hands, a cart, a thatched roof, — such is happiness." St. Just declared 
that he would blow his brains out if he did not believe it postiible to 
remodel the French people along such lines. 

During his three-months' rule, Robespierre coupled the proc- 
lamation of these fine theories with a terrible increase in the 
policy of the "Terror" — to clear the field. The number of 
executions rose to two hundred a week. The Convention 
trembled for its own safety, and at last it turned savagely on 
Robespierre. On July 27, when he began to speak, he was 
interrupted by shouts of " Down with the tyrant ! " Astounded, 
he stammered confusedly ; and a delegate cried, — " See, the 
blood of Danton chokes him." Quickly he was tried and 
executed, with a hundred close adherents. 

The "Terror" now came to an end, and some extreme laws Fall of 
were repealed. In December, 1794, encouraged by the re- Robespierre 
action against the radicals, the fugitive members of the Right 
once more appeared in the Assembly; and in March, 1795, 
even the survivors of the expelled Girondists were admitted. 
The Jacobins roused the populace of Paris in a desperate 
attempt to undo the reaction ; but the middle class had rallied, . 



304 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



and the mob was dispersed by troops and by organized bands 
of "gilded youth." The populace was disarmed, the National 
Guards were reorganized, and there followed over France a 
"White Terror," wherein the conservative classes executed or 
assassinated many hundreds of the Jacobin party — whereof, 
since this was not a "Red" Terror, history makes little mention. 



The 
Directory 



Royalist 
rising 
swept 
away' 



1795-1799: THE DIRECTORY 

A new "Constitution of the Year III" (1795) replaced the 
constitution of the Year I and confirmed middle-class rule in 
the Republic. The government established by this document 
is called "The Directory." This was the name of the executive, 
which consisted of a committee of five, chosen by the legislature. 
The legislature consisted of two Houses. Property qualifica- 
tions for voting were restored. 

The constitution ivas submitted to a popular vote; but, before 
the vote was taken, at the last moment, the expiring Conven- 
tion decreed that two thirds of its members should hold over as 
members of the new Assembly.^ This arrangement was sub- 
mitted to the people, along with the constitution, and was 
practically made a condition to the latter. It was carried 
by a small majority, while the constitution was ratified by an 
overwhelming vote. In Paris the secret Royalists took ad- 
vantage of the dissatisfaction among the people at this arrange- 
ment to stir up a revolt. They were joined by twenty thou- 
sand National Guards. The Directory was in terror. But it 
had four thousand regular troops, and it happened to hit upon 
a brilliant young officer to command them. That officer posted 
cannon about the approaches to the Convention hall, and 
mowed down the attacking columns with "a whiff of grapeshot" 
(October 5, 1795). 

The Directory remained in power four years more ; but the 
chief interest for this period centers in the rise of the officer 
who had saved it, and whose name was Napoleon Bonaparte. 

1 Cf. the story of the Rump Parliament, p. 204. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE RISE OF NAPOLEON 

In 1795, when the government of the Convention was merged Expansion 

before 
in the Directory, France had already made great gains- of terri- Bonaparte 

tory. On the northeast, Belgium had been annexed, with the 
vote of its people. Nice and Savoy, on the southeast, had been 
added, in like manner. The eastern frontier had been moved to 
the Rhine, by the seizure of all the territory of the Empire on 
the west side of the river. Holland had been converted into a 
dependent ally, as the "Batavian Republic," with a constitu- 
tion molded on that of France. Prussia, Spain, and most of the 
small states had withdrawn from the war. Only England,; 
Austria, and Sardinia kept the field. 

The Directory then determined to attack Austria vigorously, Bonaparte 
both in Germany and in her Italian provinces (p. '233). Two 
splendid armies were sent into Germany, and a small, ill-supplied 
force in Italy was put under the command of Bonaparte. The 
wonderful genius of the young general (then twenty-seven years 
old) made the Italian campaign the decisive factor in the war. 
By rapid movements, he separated the Austrian and Sardinian 
forces,. beat the latter in five battles in eleven days, and forced 
Sardinia to conclude peace. Turning upon the brave but delib- 
erate Austrians, he won battle after battle, and by July he was 
master of Italy. Austria, however, clung stubbornly to her 
Italian provinces ; and during the following year, four fresh 
armies, each larger than Napoleon's, were sent in succession 
from the Rhine to the Po, only to meet destruction. In October, 
1797, Austria agreed to accept Venice from Bonaparte, in ex- 
change for Lombardy and Belgium, which she had lost, and war 
on the continent closed with the "Peace of Campo Formio." 

305 



306 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



To the Italians, Bonaparte posed at first as a deliverer, and 
his large promises awoke the peninsula to the hope of a new 
national life. Something was accomplished. Oligarchic Genoa 
became "the Ligurian Republic," and the Po valley was made 
into "the Cisalpine Republic." Bonaparte swept away feudal- 
ism and serfdom and the forms of the old Austrian despo- 
tism, and introduced civil 
equality and some politi- 
cal liberty. At the same 
time, however, with amaz- 
ing perfidy, he tricked the 
ancient state of Venice 
into war, seized it with a 
French army, and after- 
ward coolly bartered it 
away to Austria. 

Upon even the states 
friendly to him, Bonaparte 
levied enormous contribu- 
tions, to enrich his soldiers 
and officers, to fill the 
coffers of France, and to 
bribe the Directory. His 
proclamation upon taking 
command of the Army of 
Italy had been significant 
of much to come : , " Sol- 
diers, you are starving 
and in rags. The government owes you much, but can do 
nothing for you. I will lead you into the most fruitful plains 
of the world. Teeming provinces, flourishing cities, will be in 
your power. There you may reap honor and glory and wealth." 
Works of art, too, and choice manuscripts Bonaparte ravished 
from Italian libraries and galleries, and sent to Paris, to gratify 
French vanity ; and when the Italians rose against this spolia- 
tion, he stamped out the revolts with deliberate cruelty. 




Bonaparte at Arcola. The French troops 
were breaking at a critical point, when 
the young general forced his way to the 
front, caught a falling standard, and by 
his presence, restored the fortune of the 
day. — After the painting by Gros. 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 307 

The Italian campaigns first showed Napoleon Bonaparte to Character of 
the world. He was born in Corsica in 1769. His parents gonaoa^e 
were Italians, poor, but of noble descent. In the year of his 
birth, Corsica became a possession of France. The boy passed 
through a French military school, and when the Revolution 
began he was a junior lieutenant of artillery. The war gave him 
opportunity. He had distinguished himself at the capture of 
Toulon (p. 297) ; and, chancing to be in Paris at the time of the 
rising against the Directory, in 1795, he had been called upon to 
defend the government. In reward he was given, the next year, 
the command of the "Army of Italy." 

Napoleon was one of the three or four supreme military 
geniuses of history. He was also one of the greatest of 
civil rulers. He had profound insight, a marvelous memory, 
and tireless energy. He was a "terrible worker," and his 
success was largely due to his wonderful grasp of masses of 
details, — so that he could recall the smallest features of 
geography where a campaign was to take place, or could name 
the man best suited for office in any one of a multitude of 
obscure towns. He was not insensible to generous feeling; 
but, like Frederick II of Prussia (p. 249), he was utterly un- 
scrupulous and deliberately rejected all claims of morality. 
"Morality," said he, "has nothing to do with such a man as I 
am." Perfidy and cruelty, when they suited his ends, he used 
as calmly as appeals to honor and patriotism. 

His generalship lay largely in unprecedented rapidity of move- 
ment, and in massing his troops against some one weak point of 
an enemy. "Our general," said his soldiers, "wins his victories 
with our legs." Moreover, the French army was superior to any 
army in Europe. Elsewhere military office came by birth or by 
purchase. In the Revolutionary armies of France, it came by 
merit and genius. All of Napoleon's great lieutenants had risen 
from the ranks. One of his most dashing generals (Jourdan) 
had been a tailor ; another (Murat) a waiter. , Napoleon always 
cherished this democratic character of the army. "Every sol- 
dier," said he, "carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack." 



308 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



Bonaparte 
in Egypt 



Escape to 
France 



In early life Bonaparte may have been a sincere Republican ; 
but he hated anarchy and disorder, and, before his campaign 
in Italy was over, he had begun to plan to make himself ruler 
of France. He worked systematically to transform the army's 
earlier ardor for liberty into a passion for military glory and 
plunder. He became the idol of the soldiery, and then used 
the military power to overthrow the civil authority. 

Before Campo Formio he had said to a friend, " Do you 
suppose I conquer for the lawyers of the Directory? . . . 
Do you think I mean to found a Republic? What an 
idea ! . . . The nation tvants a head, a chief illustrious 
for great exploits ; it does not care for theories of govern- 
ment. . . . The French want glory. As for liberty, of 
that they have no conception. ... I am everything to 
the army. Let the Directory try to take my command 
from me, and they will see who is master." 

England alone continued the war against France; and the 
next year til798) Bonaparte persuaded the Directory to let him 
attack Egypt, as a step toward attacking England's power 
in India. He won a series of brilliant battles in Egypt ; but 
suddenly his fleet was annihilated by the English under Nelson, 
in the Battle of the Nile, and his gorgeous dreams of Oriental 
empire faded away. 

Then Bonaparte deserted his doomed army, and escaped to 
France, where he saw new opportunities. War on the continent 
had been renewed. In 1798 the Directory had brought about 
a change in the government of Switzerland and had organized 
that country as " the Helvetic Republic." They had also driven 
the pope from Rome and dispossessed other Italian rulers, to 
make way for new republican states. The Great Powers of 
Europe were alarmed at these measures. England succeeded 
in drawing Russia and Austria into another coalition; and so 
far, in the new war, the campaigns had gone against France. 
Bonaparte's failure in distant Egypt was not comprehended, 
and the French people welcomed him as a savior. 



BONAPARTE OVERTHROWS THE DIRECTORY 309 

The Directory had proven disgracefully corrupt. Each of Overthrow 
three years in succession — 1797, 1798, 1799 — the elections 1)1*55^0™ 
had gone against it ; but it had kept itself in power by a series Bonaparte, 
of coups d'eiat} or arbitrary interferences with the result of the rQ^gyi 
voting. Now Bonaparte used a coup d'etat against it.* His 
troops purged the legislature of members hostile to his plan ; 
and a Rump, made up of Bonaparte's adherents, abolished the 
Directory and elected Bonaparte and two others as Consuls, 
intrusting to them the preparation of a new constitution. 
"Now," said the peasantry, "we shall have peace, thanks to 
God and to Bonaparte"; and by a vote of some three million 
to fifteen hundred, the French people accepted the constitution 
that virtually made Bonaparte dictator. France was not really 
ready for the freedom that Paris had won for her so unex- 
pectedly by revolution. If Bonaparte had not seized power, 
some other military chief surely would soon have done so. 

For Further Reading. — High school students will hardly get time 
to read upon the Directory period, apart from Napoleon's story. For 
that, see references on pages 325-326. 

' Literally, a "stroke of state." This is the name given in France to in- 
fractions of the constitution by some part of the government through the use 
of force. Happily the thing itself hns been so unknown to English history 
that the English language has to borrow the French name. The attempt of 
Charles'I to seize the five members (p. 200) was something of the sort. The 
coming century was to see many a coup d'etat in France ; and like phenomena 
have been common in other European countries. 



of the 
Consulate 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE CONSULATE, 1799-1804 

Peace of Bonaparte's first work as consul was to crush foreign foes, 

miens, j^ 1800 he won the great battle of Marengo over the Austrians 
in Italy, and General Moreau crushed another Austrian army 
in Bavaria at Hohenlindrn. Austria and Russia then made 
peace with France ; and two years later the Peace of Amiens 
(1802) closed the strife between France and England. For a 
brief period, the world was free from war. Napoleon appeared 
both a conqueror with dazzling victories and also the restorer 
of the long-desired peace. 
Constitution The Consulate was confirmed by the Constitution of the 
Year VIII (1800). The government was to rest on manhood 
suffrage, but that suffrage was to be " refined by successive filtra- 
tions." The adult males, some five million in all, were to 
choose one tenth their number ; the five hundred thousand 
"Communal Notables," so chosen, were in turn to choose one 
tenth their number ; these fifty thousand " Departmental Nota- 
bles" were to choose five thousand "National Notables." 

But all this voting was only to settle eligibility. The execu- 
tive was to appoint communal officers at will out of the Com- 
munal Notables, departmental officers out of the Departmental 
Notables, and members of the legislature and other chief 
officers out of the National Notables. 

The legislature was to be broken up into four parts : a Coun- 
cil of State to prepare bills ; a Tribunate to discuss them, with- 
out right to vote ; a Legislative Chamber to vote upon them, 
without right to discuss ; and a Senate, with power to veto. 

Sieyes, who planned this constitution, had intended to break 
up the executive in like manner into one consul for war, an- 

310 



THE CONSULATE 311 

other for peace, and a "Grand Elector" who should appoint 
the consuls and other great officials, but should then have no 
part in the government. Here Napoleon intervened. He was 
willing to accept a system of elections that never elected any- 
body, and a legislature that could not legislate ; but he changed 
the shadowy "Grand Elector" into a First Consul, with all 
other parts of the constitution subject to his will. 

Bonaparte became First Consul. His colleagues, as he put 
it, were "merely counselors whom I am expected to consult, 
but whose advice I need not accept." Directly or indirectly, 
he himself filled all offices, and no law could even be proposed 
without his sanction. 

Local administration was highly centralized, without even Centrali- 
those checks upon the central power that had existed before the ^nf*^°°fi j 
Revolution (p. 259). For each Department Napoleon appointed 
a Prefect, and for each subdistrict a Subprefect. Even the forty 
thousand mayors of towns and villages were appointed by the 
First Consul or by his agents, and held office at his will ; " nor 
did there exist anywhere independent of him the authority 
to light or repair the streets of the meanest village in France." 

This new administration was vigorous and fearless ; and 
under Napoleon's energy and genius, it conferred upon 
France great and rapid benefits. But, in the long, run, 
the result was to be unspeakably disastrous. The chance 
for Frenchmen to train themselves at their own gates in 
the duties and responsibilities of freemen, by sharing in 
the local government, was lost; and the willingness to 
depend upon an all-directing central power was fixed even 
more firmly than before in their minds. (Cf. p. 19.) 

Within France Bonaparte used his vast authority to restore Restoration 
order and heal strife. Royalist and Jacobin were welcomed to °^ °^^^^ 
public employment and to favor; and a hundred and fifty 
thousand exiles, of the best blood and brain of France, returned, 
to reinforce the citizen body. An agreement with the pope 
("the Concordat") reconciled the Catholic church to the state. 



312 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 



The last 
of the 
benevolent 
despots 

Reforms 



The " Code 
Napoleon " 



Material 
prosperity 



All bishops were replaced by new ones appointed by Napoleon 
and consecrated by the pope. The church became Roman 
again, but it was supported and controlled by the state. 

The reform work of the great Convention of '93 had been 
dropped by the Directory. Some parts of it were now taken 
up again. Public education was organized ; corruption and 
extravagance in the government gave way to order and effi- 
ciency ; law was simplified and justice was made cheaper and 
easier to secure. 

This last work was the most enduring and beneficent of all. 
The Convention had begun to reform the outgrown absurdities 
of the confused mass of French laws. The First Consul now 
completed the task. A commission of great lawyers, working 
under his direction and inspiration, swiftly reduced the vast 
chaos of old laws to a marvelously compact, simple, symmetrical 
code. 

This body of law included the new principles of equality born 
of the Revolution. It soon became the basis of law for practi- 
cally all Europe, except England, Russia, and Turkey. From 
Spain it spread to all Spanish America, and it lies at the founda- 
tion of the law of the State of Louisiana. Napoleon himself 
declared, after his overthrow, "Waterloo will wipe out the 
memory of my forty victories ; but that which nothing can wipe 
away is my Civil Code. That will live forever." ^ 

The material side of society was not neglected. The de- 
preciated paper money (p. 281) was restored to a sound basis, 
and industry of all kinds was encouraged. Paris was made 
the most beautiful city of Europe, and it was given an excellent 
water supply. Parks and public gardens were provided, 
while, here and there, rose triumphal arches and columns. 
Roads, canals, and harbors were built, and old ones were im- 
proved. And, chief of all, the economic gain of the peasants 
in the Revolution (p. 282) was preserved. The peasantry were 
landowners, free from their old burdens ; and workmen secured 

> Special reports : the Legion of Honor ; Napoleon's encouragement of 
science. 



THE CODE NAPOLEON 313 

two or three times the wages they had received ten years before. 
Under such conditions the people displayed new energies, and, 
with the establishment of quiet and order, they quickly built 
up a vast material prosperity. 

In short, Bo7iaparte destroyed political liberty; but he preserved 
equality before the law, along with the economic gains to the 
working classes from the Revolution. The burden of taxation was 
made to rest with fair justice upon all classes. The peasant paid 
not four fifths his income* in taxes, as before the Revolution, but 
about one fifth ; and he got much more in return than before. 

In all this reconstruction the controlling mind was that The last 

of the First Consul. Functionaries worked as they had worked of the benev- 
olent despots 
for no other master. Bonaparte knew how to set every man 

the right task ; and his own matchless activity (he sometimes 
worked twenty hours a day) made it possible for him to over- 
see countless designs. His penetrating intelligence seized the 
essential point of every problem, and his indomitable will drove 
through all obstacles to a quick and eflFective solution. His 
ardor, his ambition for France and for glory, his passion for 
good work, his contempt for difficulties, inspired every official, 
until, as one of them said, " the gigantic entered into our habit 
of thought." 

But the benefits that Bonaparte conferred upon France were 
the work of a beneficent despotism, not of a free government. 
He worked as a Joseph II (p. 250) of greater ability might have 
done. Bonaparte was .the last and greatest of the benevolent 
despots, and it was soon plain that he meant to seize the outer 
trappings of royalty as well as its power. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



THE FRENCH EMPIRE. 1804-1814 



" Emperor 
Napoleon 
the First " 



Plebiscites 



System 

of 

spies 



In 1802 Bonaparte had himself elected "Consul for Life." 
He set up a court, with all the forms of monarchy, and began 
to sign papers by his first name only — Napoleon — as kings 
sign. Then, in 1804, he obtained another vote of the nation 
declaring him "Emperor of the French," and he solemnly 
crowned himself at Paris, with the presence and sanction of the 
pope, as the successor of Charlemagne. 

Napoleon always claimed that he ruled by the "will of the 
French people" ; and each assumption of power was given a 
show of ratification by a popular vote, or plehiscitc. But the 
plebiscite was merely the nation's Yes or No to a question 
framed by the master. The result of a No could never be fore- 
seen ; and it was not hard so to shape questions' that men 
would rather say Yes than risk the indefinite consequences of 
saying No. The nation had no share at any stage in shaping the 
questions upon which it was to vote; and even the vote was con- 
trolled largely by skillful coercion. A plebiscite was a thin 
veil for military despotism ; but it was at least a standing 
denial of the old doctrine of "divine right." At the same time, 
it must be acknowledged that the French people tamely sur- 
rendered to a despotic master who flattered their vanity and 
fed their material prosperity. 

Personal liberty was no longer safe. Napoleon maintained 
a vast network of secret police and spies, and in ten years he sent 
• thirty-six hundred men to prison or into exile by his mere order. 
The press was subjected to stern and searching censorship. 
No book could be published if it contained opinions offensive to 
the emperor, even in matters only slightly related to politics. 
Thus Madame de Stael was not allowed to say that the drama of 

314 



NAPOLEON I AND HIS WARS 315 

Iphigenia by the German Goethe was a greater play than the 

work of the French Racine upon the same plot. Newspapers Free 

were forbidden to print anything "contrarv to the duties of ^P®®<^" 

^ ", . suppressed 

subjects." They were required to omit all news "disadvan- 
tageous or disagreeable to France," and in political matters they 
were allowed to publish only such items as were furnished them 
by the government. Thus the Moniteitr, the leading official 
paper, made no mention of the destruction of the French 
fleet by Nelson at Trafalgar (p. 317) in 1805. 

Moreover, they were required to praise the administration. 
"Tell them," said Napoleon, "I shall judge them not only by 
tlie evil they say, but by the good they do not say." Even 
the schools were made . to preach despotism, and were com- 
manded to "take as the basis of their instruction fidelity to 
the Emperor." Religion, too, was pressed into service. Every 
village priest depended, directly or indirectly, upon Napoleon's 
will, and was expected to uphold his power. An Imperial 
Catechism was devised, and used in all schools, expressly to 
teach the duty of all good Christians to obey the emperor.^ 

In 1802 Napoleon told his Council of State that he should The " Na- 
welcome war and that he expected it. Europe, he declared, £^ .."^ 
needed a single head, an emperor, to distribute the various 
kingdoms among lieutenants.^ He felt, too, that victories and 
military glory were needful to prevent the French nation from 
murmuring against his despotism. 

Naturally, other nations felt that there could be no lasting 
peace with Napoleon except on terms of absolute submission. 
Under such conditions as these, war soon broke out afresh. 
England and France came to blows again in 1803, and there 
was to be no more truce between .them until Napoleon's fall. 
During the next eleven years. Napoleon fought also three wars 
with Austria, two with Prussia, two with Russia, a long war 
with Spain, and various minor conflicts. 

' Extracts are given in Anderson's Documents, No. 65. 
2 This is the way in which the German Hohenzollerns have recently been 
planning to secure European "peace." Cf. p. 612. 



316 



NAPOLEON I 



The European wars from 1792 to 1802 belong to the period 
of the French Revolution proper. Those from 1803 to 1815 
are "Napoleonic wars," due primarily to the ambition of one 

great military genius. In 
the first series, Austria was 
the chief opponent of the 
Revolution : in the second 
series, England was the 
relentless foe of Napoleon. 
On the breaking out of 
war with England, Napo- 
leon prepared a mighty 
flotilla and a magnificent 
army at Boulogne. Eng- 
land was threatened with 
overwhelming invasion if 
she should lose command 
of the Channel even for a 
few hours. So sure did 
Napoleon feel of his prey 
that he even prepared a 
medal to be struck in Lon- 
don, upon his expected 
entry there, to commemo- 
rate his victory ; but all 
his attempts to get to- 
gether a fleet to compete 
with England's failed. 

In 1805 Austria and 
Russia joined England in 
the war. With immediate 
decision. Napoleon trans- 
ferred his forces from the Channel to the Danube, annihilated 
two great armies, at Uhn and Austerlitz (October and Decem- 
ber), and, entering Vienna as a conqueror, forced Austria to a 
humiliating peace. That country gave up her remaining terri- 




The Vendome Column — -made from 
Russian and Austrian cannon captured 
in the Austerlitz campaign. The figures 
on the spirals represent scenes in that 
campaign, and upon the summit, 142 
feet high, stood a statue of Napoleon. 
The name Vendome comes from the 
name of the public square. Students 
of ancient history will naturally com- 
pare this column with similar Roman 
military monuments. Napoleon, like 
the later HohenzoUerns, was fond of imi- 
tating the works of the Roman world- 
empire. 



AND ENGLAND 317 

tory in Italy, and her lUyrian provinces, and surrendered also 
many of her possessions in Germany. 

Prussia had maintained her neutrality for eleven years ; but 
now, with his hands free. Napoleon goaded her into war, crushed 
her absolutely at Jena (October, 1806), occupied Berlin, and 
soon afterward dictated a peace that reduced Prussia one half 
in size and bound her to France as a vassal state. 

Less decisive conflicts with Russia were followed by the Peace 

Peace of Tilsit (Julv, 1807). The Russian and French em- °*.. . 
*^ . . Tilsit 

perors met in a long mterview, and Tsar Alexander was so 

impressed by Napoleon's genius, that, from an enemy, he be- 
came a friend and ally. France, it was understood, was to rule 
Western Europe ; Russia might aggrandize herself in the 
Eastern half at the expense of Sweden, Turkey, and Asia ; and 
the two Powers were to unite in ruining England by shutting 
out her commerce from the continent. 

England had proved as supreme on the seas as Napoleon on Trafalgar 
land. In 1805, at Trafalgar, off the coast of Spain, Nelson 
destroyed the last great fleet that Napoleon collected. Soon 
afterward a secret article in the Treaty of Tilsit agreed that 
Denmark (then a considerable naval power) should be made 
to add her fleet to the French; but the English government 
struck first. It demanded the surrender of the Danish fleet into 
English hands until war should close, and finally it compelled the 
delivery by bombarding Copenhagen. 

After this. Napoleon could not strike at England with his Napoleon's 
armies, and he fell back upon an attempt to ruin her by crushing Conti- 
her commerce. All the ports of the continent were to be closed System " 
to her goods. Napoleon stirred French scientists into desperate 
efforts to invent substitutes for the goods shut out of the conti- 
nent. One valuable result followed. The English cruisers 
prevented the importation into France of West-India cane 
sugar; but it was discovered that sugar could be made from 
the beet, and the raising of the sugar-beet became a leading 
industry of France. 

This Continental System did inflict damage upon England, 



318 



NAPOLEON I 



but it carried greater harm to the continent, which simply could 
not do without the manufactures of England, then the work- 
shop of Europe. At times, even the French armies had to be 
clothed in smuggled English goods, and they marched into 
Russia in 1812 (p. 324) in English shoes. 

England's retort to the Continental System was an attempt 
to blockade the coast of France and her dependencies to all 
neutral vessels. In these war measures, both France and 
England ignored the rights of neutral states. One result was 
the War of 1812 in America. In this struggle, unhappily, we 
let ourselves be tricked into fighting upon the side of the Euro- 
pean despot, against the only champion of freedom, and upon 
the whole, into fighting that power which we had least reason to 
fight. ^ Happily, in that day, x\merica's part could not be 
decisive, and the contest did not much affect the European 
result. 

On the other hand. Napoleon's attempts to enforce his Sys- 
tem led him from one high-handed measure to another, until 
Portugal and Russia rose against him, and so gave Central 
Europe another chance to win freedom (pp. 324-325). 

Portugal refused to obey Napoleon's order to confiscate the 
English vessels in her ports. Thereupon Napoleon's armies 
occupied the kingdom. From this act. Napoleon passed to the 
seizure of Spain, placing his brother Joseph upon the throne. 
But the proud and patriotic Spanish people rose in a " War for 
Liberation," and it was soon plain that a new force had ap- 
peared. Hitherto, Napoleon had warred against governments, 
and had dictated peace when the rulers were in his power : 
now, first, he had to fight with a people in arms. Brilliant 
victories merely transferred the outbreaks from one quarter 
to another and called for more and more of his energies. Eng- 
land seized her opportunity, too, and sent an army under 
Wellesley (afterward Duke of Wellington) to support the 
Peninsular revolt. To the end, this struggle continued to drain 

1 As if, in 1914-1918, we had let Germany draw us to her side, as she hoped, 
because the English blockade of Germany hurt our commerce. 



THE NEW MAP OF EUROPE 319 

Napoleon's resources. Long after, at St. Helena, he declared 
that it was really the Spanish war that ruined him. 

In 1809, encouraged by the Spanish rising, Austria once Napoleon 
more entered the lists, but a defeat at Wagram forced her again ^^eram 
to submission. Napoleon now married a princess of Austria. 
He was anxious for an heir, and so divorced his former wife, 
Josephine, who had borne him no children, to make way for 
marriage with a grandniece of Marie Antoinette. This union 
of the Revolutionary emperor with the proud Hapsburg house 
marks in some respects the summit of his power. 

At the moment, the Spanish campaigns seemed trivial ; Napoleon's 
and after Wagram, Napoleon was supreme in Central Europe, "f Eiirope 
This period was marked by sweeping changes in territory. 
The most important may be grouped under four heads. 

The Batavian Republic (p. 305) was converted into the King- 
dom of Holland, with Napoleon's brother Louis for its sovereign. 
Later, when Louis refused to ruin his people by enforcing the 
Continental System rigidly. Napoleon deposed him, and an- 
nexed Holland to France, along with the whole north coast of 
Germany as far as Denmark. 

In Italy the new republics and the old petty states were dis- 
posed of, one after another. Even the pope was deprived of 
his principality. When these changes were complete, Italy 
lay in three fairly equal divisions. In the south Napoleon's 
brother, Joseph, ruled as King of Naples ; and when Joseph 
was promoted in 1809 to the throne of Spain, he was succeeded 
in Naples by Murat, one of Napoleon's generals. In the north- 
east was the "Kingdom of Italy," with Napoleon himself as 
king — as Charlemagne and Otto and their successors had been 
"kings of Italy" ! The rest of the peninsula was made a part of 
France, and was organized as a French Department. 

The lUyrian provinces on the eastern coast of the Adriatic 
were annexed directly to France. 

Most important of all were the changes in Germany. To 
comprehend the significance of Napoleon's work there, one 



320 



NAPOLEON I 



must first grasp the bewildering conditions before his inter- 
ference. 

Before Napoleon there was no true political Germany. The 
Holy Roman Empire was made up of : 

Two " great states," Austria and Prussia, each of them half 
Slavonic in blood ; 

Some thirty states of the "second rank," like Bavaria and 
Wurtemberg ; 

About two hundred and fifty petty states of the "third order" 
(many of them under bishops or archbishops), ranging in size 
from a small duchy to a large farm, but averaging a few thousand 
inhabitants ; 

Some fifteen hundred "knights of the empire," who in Eng- 
land would have been country squires (pp. 84-85), but who in 
Germany were really independent monarchs, with an average 
territory of three square miles, and some three hundred subjects 
apiece, over whom they held power of life and death ; 

About fifty -six "free cities," all in misrule, governed by 
narrow aristocracies (p. 99). 

Each of the two hundred and fifty states of the " third rank," 
like the larger ones, was an absolute monarchy, with its own laws, 
its own mimic court and army, its own coinage, and its crowd 
of pedantic officials. The "Sovereign Count" of Leimburg- 
Styrum-Wilhelmsdorf kept a standing army of one colonel, 
nine lower officers and two privates ! Each of the fifteen hun- 
dred " knights " had his own system of tariffs and taxes. 

One more factor must be taken into account in order to get 
an idea of the indescribable confusion. Rarely did one of these 
petty principalities have its territory compact. Many a state of the 
second or third order consisted of several fragvienis ^ (obtained by 
accidents of marriage or war), sometimes widely scattered, — some 
of them perhaps wholly inside a larger state to which politically 
they had no relation. No map can do justice to the quaint 
confusion of this region, about the size of Texas, thus broken 
• As indicated by such compound names as the one above. 



AND GERMAN UNITY 321 

into eighteen hundred governments varying from an empire to 
a small estate, and scattered in fragments within fragments.^ 
It is little wonder that the philosopher Lessing, the greatest 
German between Luther and Goethe, should have said: "Pa- 
triotism I do not understand ; at best it seems an amiable weak- 
ness which I am glad to be free from." 

Napoleon had begun his rearrangement of Germany at Campo Napoleon's 
Formio (p. 305). By that treaty (and by subsequent arrange- Jf fJl?''^^ 
ments), princes of the Empire were allowed to recompense them- solidation 
selves for the territories they had lost to France by absorbing 
the ecclesiastical states and most of the "free cities." 

After Austerlitz and Jena, more radical changes followed. 
Austria and Prussia were weakened. The first became an 
inland state. The second was halved and pushed altogether 
beyond the Elbe, while its recent Polish acquisitions were 
turned into the Duchy of Warsaw. Besides so depressing the 
two great states, Napoleon proceeded to form a further check 
upon them by augmenting the states of the second rank. Ba- 
varia, Saxony, and Wurtemberg were made kingdoms, with 
territories enlarged at the expense of Austria and of smaller 
neighboring states ; while out of old Prussian territory and 
of the electorate of Hanover was formed a new "Kingdom of 
Westphalia," for Napoleon's brother Jerome. 

At the same time, the large states were encouraged or com- 
pelled to absorb the territories of the knights and of the petty 
principalities within or adjoining their borders. Thus the " po- 
litical crazy quilt" of eighteen hundred states was simplified to 
thirty-eight states. This tremendous consolidation, surviving 
the rearrangements after Napoleon's fall, paved the way for later 
German unity. 

Nearly all these German states, except Austria and Prussia, End of the 
were leagued in the "Confederation of the Rhine," under ^°j^^jj 
Napoleon as "Protector." This amounted to a dissolution of Empire 
the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1806 Francis II laid down that 
venerable title. Napoleon himself posed as the successor of 
1 These conditions are dimly suggested by the map after p. 118. 



322 



NAPOLEON T 



Social 
reform 
in 
Germany 



Stein in 
Prussia 



the Roman emperors. Francis was allowed to console him- 
self with the title "Emperor of Austria," for his hereditary 
realms, instead of his previous title, "Arch-Duke of Austria." 

How far does Napoleon deserve gratitude for so sweeping away 
old and obstructive features in the map of Germany ? He had 
not much personally to gain by his action in this matter. Seem- 
ingly the explanation, in large part at least, is that he was a 
born administrator to whom disorder and confusion was hateful ; 
and, when he could, he cleaned it up — much as a good house- 
wife sometimes aches to clean up her neighbor's neglected 
and dusty parlor. 

And Napoleon's influence, too, began great social reforms in 
Germany. In the Confederacy of the Rhine and in the many 
kingdoms of Napoleon's* brothers and generals, serfdom and 
feudalism were abolished, and civil equality and the "Code 
Napoleon" were introduced. Everywhere, too, the administra- 
tion of justice was made cheap and simple, and the old clumsy 
and corrupt methods of government gave way to order and 
efficiency. 

Most striking of all was the reform in Prussia. Elsewhere 
the new methods were introduced by French agents or under 
French influence. In Prussia, reform came from a Prussian 
minister, and was adopted in order to make Prussia strong 
enough to cast off the French yoke. 

Jena had proved that the old Prussian system was utterly 

rotten. The guiding spirit in a new Prussian ministry was 

Stein, who labored to fit Prussia for leadership in freeing and 

regenerating Germany.' The serfs were changed into free 

peasant-landowners. The caste distinctions in society were 

broken down. The old law had recognized distinct classes, 

— peasants, burgesses, and nobility, — and had practically 

forbidden an individual to pass from one class into another. 

Even the land had been bound by the caste system : no noble 

1 Curiously enough, this almost solitary progressive among Prussian 
statesmen was Prussian not by birth but by adoption. 



THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW 



323 



could sell land to the citizen of a town ; nor cotild noble or 
townsman sell to a peasant. All this was now done away. 
Some self-government was granted to the towns. And many 
of the best principles of the French reforms were adopted. 
Napoleon's insolence and the domination of the French armies 
at last had forced part of Germany into the beginning of a new 

national patriotism ; and 
that patriotism began to 
arm itself by borrowing 
weapons from the arsenal 
of the French Revolution. 



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In 1810 Napoleon's Greatest 
its 



power 



had reached ■•-■ e^^ent of 



Napoleon toward the Close of His 
Reign. 



Napoleon's 
widest limits. The huge sway 

bulk of France filled the 
space from the Ocean to 
the Rhine, including not 
only the France which we 
know, but also Belgium, » 
half of Switzerland, and 
large strips of German 
territory, — while from this 
central body two outward- 
curving arms reached 



toward the east, one along the North Sea to the Danish Pen- 
insula, and the other down the coast of Italy past Rome. 

This vast territory was all organized in French Departvients. 
The rest of Italy and half the rest of Germany were under 
Napoleon's "protection," and were ruled by his appointees. 
Denmark and Switzerland, too, were his dependent allies ; 
and Prussia and Austria were unwilling ones. Only the extrem- 
ities of the continent kept their independence, and even there, 
Sweden and Russia were his friends. 

But Russia was growing hostile. Alexander was offended 
by the partial restoration of Poland (as the Duchy of Warsaw). 



324 



NAPOLEON I 



The Continental System, too, was growing more and more 
burdensome. Russia needed English markets, and in 1811 the 
Tsar refused longer to enforce the "System." 

Napoleon at once declared war. In 1812 he invaded Russia 
and penetrated to Moscow. The Russians set fire to the city, 
so that it should not afford him winter quarters ; but, with rare 
indecision, he stayed there five weeks, hoping in vain that the 
Tsar would offer to submit. Then, too late, in the middle of 
October, when the Russian winter was already upon them, the 




Napoleon Leaving Moscow. — From an imaginative painting. 



French began the terrible "Retreat from Moscow," fighting 
desperately each foot of the way against cold, starvation, and 
clouds of Cossack cavalry. Nine weeks later, twenty thousand 
miserable scarecrows recrossed the Niemen. The "Grand 
Army," a half million strong, had left its bones among Russian 
snows. 

The Russians kept up the pursuit into Germany, and the 
enthusiasm of the Prussian people forced the government to 
declare against Napoleon. University professors enlisted at 
the head of companies of their students in a "war of liberation." 
Women gave their jewels and even their hair, to buy arms and 



THE FALL OF NAPOLEON 325 

supplies. The next summer, Austria also took up arms. By 
tremendous efforts, Napoleon raised a new army of boys and old 
men from exhausted France, and for a time he kept the field 
victoriously in Germany ; but in October, 1813, he met crushing 
defeat at Leipzig, in the "Battle of the Nations." 

Napoleon retreated across the Rhine. His vassal kings fled Fall of 
from their thrones, and most of the small states now joined his *^° ®°° 
enemies. England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, acting in close 
concert, took to themselves the name "The Allies," and main-" 
tained a perfect understanding. After Leipzig, they proposed 
peace, offering to leave Napoleon his crown, with the Rhine for 
the boundary of France. Like a desperate gamester, bound to 
win or lose all, Napoleon rejected these terms. The Allies 
then advanced to the Rhine, and offered peace with the French 
boundaries of 1792. Napoleon again refused. The Allies in- 
vaded France at several points, with overwhelming numbers ; 
and, in spite of Napoleon's superb defense, they entered Paris 
victoriously in March, 1814, and dictated peace. 

The Allies made Napoleon a large allowance, and granted him 
the island of Elba, in the Mediterranean, as an independent 
principality. The Bourbon heir to the French throne, one of the 
Emigrant brothers of Louis XVI, appeared, promised a constitu- 
tion to France, and was quietly recognized by the French Senate 
as Louis XVIIL^ The Allies avoided the appearance of im- 
posing this king upon France, but they liked the arrangement. 
To make it popular, they granted liberal terms of peace. France 
kept her territory as it was before the Revolution. The Allies 
withdrew their armies without imposing any war indemnity, 
such as France had exacted repeatedl;)' from other countries ; 
nor did they even take back the works of art that French armies 
had plundered from so many famous galleries in Europe. 

For Further Reading. — The best brief accounts of the Napoleonic 
era are given in Stephens' Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815 and in Rose's 

1 The son of Louis XVI had died in prison at Paris in 1795. According to 
the theory that he began to reign upon his father's death in 1793, he is known 
as Louis XVII. 



326 THE FALL OF NAPOLEON 

Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era. The many histories of Napoleon 
are most of them defaced by extreme partisanship on one side or the 
other, or are too long for general use. Probably the best treatment is 
also the most recent, — Rose's Napoleon the First. Anderson's Con- 
stitutions and Documents gives an admirable selection of documents. 
Kennan's Folktales about Napoleon is a curious and interesting volume. 



PART V 

A PERIOD OF KEAOTION, 1815-1848 

CHAPTER XIX 

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA : RESTORATION 

Napoleon had wiped away the old map of Europe, and Political 

now his' map fell to pieces. All the districts which had been chaos in 

1 • Europe 

annexed to France since 1792, and all the states which had 

been created by Napoleon, were left without governments. 

The old rulers of these states were clamoring for. restoration. 

Other rulers wanted new acquisitions to pay for their exertions 

against Napoleon There was also a fear pervading Europe 

that from France either new and dangerous "Revolutionary" 

ideas or a new military conqueror might overrun the world. 

To settle these problems — to arrange for "restoration," 

"reparation," and "guarantees" — the four "Allies" invited 

all the sovereigns of Europe to a " Peace Congress." 

The Congress of J^ienna assembled in November, 1814. The The 
crowd of smaller monarchs and princes were entertained by j y?*^^^^ 
their Austrian host in a constant round of masques and revels, 
while the four great Allies (Russia, Austria, Prussia, England) 
did the work in private committee. From time to time, as 
they reached agreements, they announced results to the Con- 
gress for public ratification. 

The territorial rearrangements fall under three heads. 

/. Italy wa'i left in hvelre states, and Germany in thirty-eight. Territorial 
These were all restored to their old ruling families. (The other ^g^^s"^^ 
phases of the "restoration" can be treated most conveniently "restora- 
in the next chapter.) °* 

327 



328 THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA, 1814 

Guarantee 2. The states along the Prench frontier were strengthened, as one 
French "guarantee" against future aggression by France. (1) Holland 

attack was made into the Kingdom of the Netherlands, under the 

House of Orange, and Belgium was added to it, although the 
Belgians wished to be independent and objected very strongly 
to being made Dutch. (2) Nice and Savoy were given back 
to the Kingdom of Sardinia, to which was added also the old 
Republic of Genoa. (3) German territory west of the Rhine, 
now taken back from France, was divided between the power- 
ful kingdoms of Prussia and Bavaria. (4) The Congress 
guaranteed the "neutrality" of Switzerland, promising that 
all would join in punishing any country which in future wars 
should march troops through that state. Thus the entire 
European frontier next France, from the North Sea to the 
Mediterranean, was powerfully fortified. 

3. The remaining rearrangements had to do, directly or in- 
directly, with "compensating" the Allies for their exertions and 
losses. Under cover of high-sounding phrases about founding 
"a durable peace based upon a just division of power," the 
Congress became "a Congress for loot" and began a disgraceful 
scramble for spoils. 
Plunder (1) England had stood out alone for years against the whole 

power of Napoleon, and she had incurred an enormous national 
debt by acting as paymaster of the various coalitions. In 
repajonent, she now kept Malta, the Ionian Islands, Cape 
Colonv, Ceylon, and a few other colonial acquisitions, mainly 
from the old Dutch empire, which she had occupied during 
the war. 

The "Second Hundred Years' War" can now be seen 
as a whole, in relation to world-empire. The first period 
(1689-1763) is covered in pp. 231-233, 242-245: it is 
known in America as the period of Intercolonial Wars. 
It ended with the exclusion of France from North America 
and India, to England's gain. The second period (1775- 
1783) is the period of the American Revolution. England 



for the 
Allies 



THE ALLIES FALL OUT 329 

lost the richest part of her American empire, but she made 
gains elsewhere at the expense of France, Spain, and 
Holland, and acquired Australia. The fhird period, the wars 
of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1792-1815), left 
England the one great colonial power. Spain ' and 
Holland still had some possessions outside Europe ; but 
their Jioldings were insignificant beside England's. 

(2) Aiistria received back all her lost territory, except distant 
Belgium in place of which she accepted Venetia and Lombardy, 
much to the distaste of the inhabitants of those districts. 

(3) Alexander, Tsar of Russia, secured Finland from Sweden ; 
and he demanded also further reward in Poland. The Duchy 
of Warsaw (p. 32*1), he insisted, should be made into a kingdom 
of Poland, and he should be the king. But this plan conflicted 
with Prussian ambition. 

(4) Prussia gained Pomerania from Sweden; but the Prus- 
sian king insisted also upon regaining the Polish provinces 
that Napoleon had taken from him for the Duchy of Warsaw. 
Alexander promised to aid Prussia to get Saxony instead. 
The king of Saxony had been a zealous ally of Napoleon to 
the last ; and so, Alexander urged, it would be proper to make 
an exception in his case to the careful respect shown by the 
conquerors to all other "legitimate rulers." 

Prussia was ready to accept this ; but Austria feared such The Allies 

extension of Prussia toward the heart of Germany, and vehe- ^^e^riy fall 

out 
mently opposed the plan. England took her side. Thus the 

four Allies were divided, — Russia and Prussia against Austria 
and England, — and came to the verge of war with one another. 
Perhaps the most interesting result of this was the way in which 
France wormed her way back into the European circle. The 
Allies had meant to give that "outlaw nation" no voice what- 
ever at the peace table. But Talleyrand, the shrewd French 
diplomat, was present at Vienna as a looker-on ; and now, 
by offering French aid to Austria and England at a critical 

' For Spain's loss of colonial empire, cf. p. 340. 



330 



THE CONGRESS OP VIENNA, 1814 



Napoleon's 
brief 
return : 
"The 
Hundred 
Days " 



moment, he won a place for his country in the Congress, and, 
as he said, exultingly but rather prematurely, " broke up forever 
the alliance against her." 

Finally a compromise was made — the more readily that 
Napoleon had broken loose (see below) . In addition to her gain 
of Pomerania, Prussia took half of Saxony and considerable 
German territory, recovered from France, west of the Rhine 
(see above). 

It should be noted that Sweden, which in the time of 
Peter the Great had surrounded the Baltic, had now retired 
wholly into the northern peninsula. There, however, she 
found some compensation. Denmark (which had been the 
ally of Napoleon) noiv had to surrender Norway, and this 
land' the Congress of J^ienjia turned over to Sweden in return 
for Finland and Pomerania. How, out of this arrange- 
ment, the Norwegians won independence in a ninety years' 
struggle is told in a later chapter, — one of the finest 
stories of the nineteenth century. 

During the dissensions regarding Saxony, the Congress was 
startled by the news that Napoleon had left Elba. A few 
months of Bourbon rule had filled France with unrest. The 
Tricolor, under which Frenchmen had marched in triumph 
into nearly every capital in Europe, had been replaced by the 
Bourbon White flag, and many Napoleonic officers had been 
dismissed from the army to make way for returned Emigrants, 
who for twenty years had fought against France. Thus the 
army was restless. The extreme Royalists were talking, too, 
of restoring the land of the church and of the Emigrants, 
though it had passed for a generation into other hands. In 
consequence, the peasants and the middle class were uneasy. 

Napoleon, learning how matters stood, landed in France, 
almost unattended. The forces sent to capture him joined his 
standard; and in a few days, he entered Paris in triumph, 
without firing a shot, as he had foretold he would do. The 
king and the old Emigrants emigrated again. Napoleon offered 



THE HUNDRED DAYS 



331 



a liberal constitution, and France accepted it by an overwhelm- 
ing plebiscite. 

The Allies, however, refused even to treat with Napoleon. 
They declared unrelenting war upon him as "the disturber of 
the peace of Europe," and promptly moved powerful armies to 
the French frontier. No time was given Napoleon for prepa- 
ration, and the odds were overwhelming. After a brief rule, 
known as the Hundred Days, he 
was crushed at Waterloo by the 
English under Wellington and the 
Prussians under Bliicher (June 18, 
1815), and sent this time to hope- 
less exile, under guard, on the dis- 
tant volcanic rock of St. Helena in 
the South Atlantic. 

The Allies reentered Paris, 
"bringing Louis XVHI in their 
baggage," as the French wits put 
it, and dictated to France a new 
treaty, much more severe than that 
of 1814. Prussia, indeed, urged 
that France should be dismem- 




The Duke of Wellington. 



Mild terms 
for France 



bered, as she herself had been after Jena. Some Prussian papers 
talked of killing off the whole French people "like mad dogs," 
and moderate statesmen wished to take Alsace and Lorraine (as 
Bismarck did do fifty years later) and other territory that had 
been seized from Germany by Louis XIV. But Alexander and 
England insisted on milder punishment, in order that the people 
might not utterly reject the Bourbon rule ; and France was 
required only (1) to give up some small strips of land containing 
about a half-million people, (2) to pay a small war indemnity 
($140,000,000), and (3) to restore the works of art which Napo- 
leon's armies had plundered from European galleries. 

During the Hundred Days, the Congress finished its work. 
Some of its later measures were highly praiseworthy. England 
persuaded the Powers to join in a declaration against the slave 



Some rivers 
" interna- 
tionalized " 



of peoples 



332 THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA 

trade ; ^ and the navigation of rivers flowing through or between 
difTerent countries was declared free to the commerce of all 
countries ("internationalized"). A country in possession of 
the mouth of a river had been in the habit of closing it against 
the trade of other nations. Thus Spain, while she held both 
banks of the mouth of the Mississippi (1783-1801), had tried to 
follow this policy — to the wrath of American settlers up the river 
and on the Ohio. The principle established at Vienna was a 
step forward for civilizati^on. Moreover, it was worth much 
for Europe to recognize that it had common interests, and that 
it could arrange them in a peaceful Congress. This was an 
advance from eighteenth century politics toward the Hague 
Congress, the Peace Congress of 1919, and the League of 
Nations. 
A peace of The Congress of Vienna, to be sure, had no thought of this 

nf'mfon^es great movement. That "assemblage of princes and lackeys" 
stood for reaction. As an English historian says, — " It com- 
placently set to work to turn back the hands of time to the 
historic hour at which they stood before the Bastille fell." 
It represented kings, not peoples. All the republics which had 
appeared since the French Revolution and also the old re- 
publics — the United Provinces, Venice, and Genoa — were 
given to monarchs. "Republics," said the Austrian Metternich 
(p. 335), "seem to have gone out of fashion." Switzerland 
was the only republic left in Europe, — and it was given an 
inefficient, loose union, far less effective than it had enjoyed 
under Napoleon's supremacy. Peoples were never consulted. 
The Congress transferred Belgians, Norwegians, Poles, Vene- 
tians, from freedom to a master, or from one master to another, 
— in every case against their fierce resentment. 

The next hundred years were to be busied very largely in 

1 Thereafter, England kept ships of war on the African coast to capture 
pirate slaving vessels. But, unhappily, the United States was unwilling to 
grant the necessary "right of search"; and so, until 1861, the horrible 
African slave trade continued to be carried on mainly by ships under the 
protection of- the Stars and Stripes, — although the foreign slave trade had 
been illegal in the United States since 1808- 



AND REACTION 333 

undoing the work of this first Peace Congress, until not one 
stone of its building was left upon another. Thus, when the 
next great Peace Congress met, in 1919, it had only to turn 
back to the Congress of Vienna for a perfect example of " How 
not to do it." 

Exercises. — Add to the list of dates the following : 1776, 1789, 
1815. The teacher will note that some phases of the work of the 
Congress are best seen after the study of the "alliances" to enforce 
peace and to preserve order (p. 568) . 



CHAPTER XX 



Absurdities 
of the 
reaction 
after 1815 



CENTRAL EUROPE TO 1820 

The history of the nineteenth century is the history of the influences 
which the French Revolution left. — Frederic Harrison. 

No land touched by the French Revolution was ever again quite the 
same. — Frederick A. Ogg. 

The immediate result of the Congress of Vienna was a victory 
for reaction and despotism. In many states, especially in the 
pettier ones, the restoration of the old rulers was accompanied 
by ludicrous absurdities. The princes who had scampered 
away before the French eagles, came back to show that they 
had "learned nothing and forgotten nothing." They set out 
to ignore the past twenty years. In France a school history 
spoke of Austerlitz as " a victory gained by General Bonaparte, 
a lieutenant of the king" ! The Elector of Hesse censured his 
-military Commandant for "omitting quarterly reports during 
the preceding ten N^ears" — during which the Elector had been 
a fugitive in England. The king of Sardinia restored serfdom. 
The Papal States and Spain again set up the Inquisition. In 
some places French plants were uprooted from the botanical 
gardens, and street lamps and vaccination were abolished be- 
cause they were "French improvements." 

The statesmen of the Great Powers must have smiled to 
themselves at some of these absurd extremes ; but they, too, 
almost universally strove to suppress progress. Five states — 
Russia, Austria, Prussia, France, and England — really deter- 
mined the policy of Europe. The first four were "divine right" 
monarchies. Louis XVIII gave France a limited Charter, 
but it carefully preserved the theory of divine right. That 
theory, of course, could have no place in England, where the 

334 



POLICY OP REPRESSION 335 

monarchy rested on the Revolution of 1688 ; but even in 
England the Whigs were discredited, because they had sympa- 
thized at first with the French Revolution. For some years 
the government there was in the hands of the Tory party, 
which was bitterly opposed to progress. 

"The rule of Napoleon was succeeded by the rule of Met- Metternich, 

ternich." Metternich was the chief servant of the Emperor *'^^.^^" 

^ gemus of 

of Austria, and the real director of Austrian policy. He was the reaction 
subtle, adroit, industrious, witty, unscrupulous. Napoleon 
said of him that he "mistook intrigue for statesmanship"; 
and Stein (p. 322) complained that he was "overfond of com- 
plications" and did not know how to do business "in the great 
and simple way." 

Far more than any other one man, Metternich had guided 
proceedings in the Congress of Vienna, and he continued to be 
the evil genius of Europe from 1814 to 1848. He summed up 
his political creed thus : " Sovereigns alone are entitled to guide 
the destinies of their peoples, and they are responsible to none 
but God. . . . Government is no more a subject for debate 
than religion is." The "new ideas" of democracy and equality 
and nationality ^ ought never to have been allowed to get 
into Europe, he said ; but, since they were in, the business of 
governments must be to keep them down. He was too shrewd 
to expect to bring back altogether the days before the French 
Revolution ; but he did hope to arrest all change at the lines 
drawn by the Congress of Vienna. In his more sanguine mo- 
ments, indeed, he spoke of the democratic impulses resulting 
from the Revolution as " a gangrene, to be burned out of Europe 
with red-hot iron." 

The political reaction was the more galling to the friends 
of liberty because the "Wars of Liberation" in 1812-1814 had 

1 The sentiment of nationality is the feeling among all the people of one 
race, speech, and country that they should make one political state, or 
become a "nation." This feeling tended to draw all Germans into one 
German state, and all Italians into one Italian state. In any conglom- 
erate state, like Austria in that day, the feeling of nationality was likely 
to be a disrupting force. 



336 



RULE OF METTERNICH, 1814-1848 



Disappoint- 
ment of 
European 
Liberals 



The 

Germanic 
Confedera- 
tion 



been essentially j)opular uprisings. The Prussian king had 
made repeated appeals to national patriotism, and had twice 
promised a constitution. Austria, and England had held out 
hopes of union and freedom to the Italians. And the Spanish 
rebels had adopted a free constitution for their country. 

Thus the Liberals of Europe had greeted Napoleon's over- 
throw with joyous acclaim ; but soon it seemed that Waterloo 
liad done little toward freeing Europe. It simply "replaced 
one insolent giant by a swarm of swaggering pygmies." The 
alHed despots had used the peoples to overthrow a rival despot, 
and then they betrayed the peoples and recalled their promises 
only as a jest. A few months after Waterloo, the English poet 
Byron lamented that "the chain of banded nations has been 
broke in vain by the accord of raised-up millions " ; and, " stand- 
ing on an Empire's dust" at the scene of the great battle, and 
noting "how that red rain has made the harvest grow," he 
mused : — 

"Gaul may champ the bit and foam in fetters, 
But is Earth more free? 
Did nations combat to make one submit, 
Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty? . . . 
Then o'er one fallen despot boast no more." 

Metternich's chief victory at the Congress of Vienna lay in 
the neio organization of Germany. No one thought of re- 
storing the discredited Holy Roman Empire. Liberal Ger- 
many, represented by Stein (p. 322), had hoped for a real union, 
either in a consolidated German Empire or in a new federal 
state. But Mettern ch saw that in a true German empire, 
Austria (with her Slav, Hungarian, and Italian interests) could 
not long keep the lead against Prussia. He preferred to leave 
the various states practically independent, so that Austria, the 
largest of all, might play them off against one another. The 
small rulers, too, were hostile to a real union, because it would 
limit their sovereignties. Metternich allied himself, in the 
Congress, with these princes of the small states, and won. The 
thirty-eight German states were organized into a "Germanic 



THE GERMANIC CONFEDERATION 337 

Confederation," a loose league of sovereigns. (Thirty -four of 
the members were sovereign princes ; the other four were the 
governments of the surviving "free cities," — Hamburg, 
Bremen, Liibeck, and Frankfort.) Each state controlled its 
own government, its own army, its own tariffs, and its own 
foreign diplomacy. They even kept the right to form alliances 
with foreign powers, — although they did promise not to make 
war upon one another. 

The Confederacy had no distinct executive, judicial, and 
legislative departments. Its one organ was a Federal Diet at 
Frankfort. This was merely a standing conference of ambas- 
sadors appointed by' the sovereigns : no important action could 
be taken without the consent of every state. Before many 
years the Diet was the laughingstock of Europe. "It was not 
a government at all : it was a polite and ceremonious way of ' 
doing nothing." 

But though the chance for making one German nation had A few 
been lost, the Liberals still hoped, for a time, for free political 
institutions in the separate states. Within the next four years, 
constitutions were granted by the liberal Grand Duke of Weimar 
and by the rulers of Nassau and of the four South German 
states, Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt. 
(Germany south of the river Main is known as South Germany.) 
The people in these southern districts had been greatly in- 
fluenced by the French Revolution, and their rulers made 
these grants largely in order to secure popular support against 
possible encroachments of Austria or Prussia upon their terri- 
tory. The constitutions left the princes still the real rulers 
of their states ; but they provided for equality of all classes 
before the law, for freedom of the press, and for representative 
assemblies with control over new taxes. (Most taxes continued 
from year to year, without new enactment.) 

King Frederick William III of Prussia, also, appointed a 
committee to draw up the constitution he had promised (p. 336). 
But he was a weak, vacillating man, and greatly influenced 
by the nobles, who railed bitterly at the idea of free institutions. 



constitu- 
tions 



338 



RULE OF METTERNICH, 1814-1848 



Disappoint- 
ment and 
radical 
agitation 



The 

Karlsbad 

Decrees 



The committee dawdled along for four years, and finally the 
king repudiated his pledge. 

Outside the Rhine districts the Liberals were not numerous, 
but the group was influential, — made up of writers, journalists, 
students, professors, and most of the rest of the small educated 
middle class. By 1817, they had become indignant at the 
delays and evasions by which promised constitutions were with- 
held. In October, the three-hundredth anniversary of Luther's 
defiance of the pope and the fourth anniversary of the Battle 
of Leipzig were celebrated together at the Wartburg castle 
in the Duchy of Weimar. The Jena University students turned 
the celebration into a demonstration of liberal feeling. They 
sang patriotic and religious songs, made a few ardent speeches, 
and, in the evening, threw some old textbooks into a bonfire, — 
having first labeled them with the names of reactionary works 
especially hated by the Liberal party. 

This boyish ebullition threw sober statesmen into spasms of 
fear, and seemed to them to prelude a revolutionary "Reign 
of Terror." Metternich took shrewd advantage of the oppor- 
tunity to wean the king of Prussia from his earlier liberalism. 
Unhappily, Metternich's hand was strengthened by the foolish 
crimes of some Liberal enthusiasts. A small section of radical 
agitators preached that even assassination in the cause of 
liberty was right ; and, in 1819, a fanatical student murdered 
Kotzebue, a Russian representative in Germany, who was 
supposed to be drawing the Tsar away from his earlier liberal 
sympathies. 

Metternich was prompt to seize the chance. He at once 
called the leading sovereigns of Germany to a conference at 
Karlsbad. There he secured their approval for a series of 
resolutions, which he afterward forced through the Diet at 
Frankfort. These Karlsbad Decrees of 1819 were especially 
directed against free speech in the press and in the universities. 
They forbade secret societies among students ; they appointed 
a government official in every university to discharge any 
professor who should preach doctrines "hostile to the public 



THE KARLSBAD DECREES 339 

order"; they set up a rigid censorship of all printed matter ; and 
they created a standing committee to hunt down conspiracies. 

For thirty years the Karlsbad Decrees remained the funda- 
mental law of the Germanic Confederacy ; and under them 
thousands of enthusiastic youths were sent into exile or to 
prison for long terms, for singing forbidden patriotic songs, or 
for wearing the colors black, red, and orange, — the colors of 
the old Empire, now adopted as the symbol of German unity, 
"Turnvater Jahn," the organizer of the patriotic Turner socie- 
ties in the time of Napoleon, and the poet Arndt, whose songs 
had done much to arouse the people against French rule, were 
both persecuted. Learned professors who would not consent 
to be completely muzzled were driven from the universities. 
Men ceased, to talk politics, and left matters of government to 
princes. Germany was started upon the incline down which 
she was to slide to a fatal abyss. 

For Further Reading. — The most desirable general treatment of 
the nineteenth century for high schools is Hazen's Europe Since 1815. 
Duplicate copies of this work will be better than a multiplicity of 
references; but students should have access also to Andrews' Modem 
Europe and Seignobos' Europe Since 1814- Carlton Hayes' Modern 
Europe, II, deals with the period 1815-1915 in an exceedingly interest- 
ing way, but from a more "radical" view-point than the other works 
mentioned here. 



CHAPTER XXI 



THE SOUTH OF EUROPE — REVOLUTIONS OF 1820 



The 
Spanish 
" Constitu- 
tion of 1812" 



Independ- 
ence of 
Spanish 
America 



Restoration 
of Ferdi- 
nand 



The first attacks upon Metternich's system came from the 
South of Europe. To understand them we must turn back a 
moment to notice conditions in Spain. The Spanish patriots 
who rose in 1808 against Napoleon (p. 318) found themselves ■ 
without a government. Their king was in the hands of the- 
French The insurgent leaders came largely frorn the small, 
educated middle class, who had been converted to the ideals 
of the early French Revolution. These leaders set up a repre- 
sentative assembly (the Cortes), and, in 1812, they adopted a 
liberal constitution. This "Constitution of 1812" was modeled 
largely upon the French Constitution of 1791, and it was the 
standard about which the Liberals of southern Europe were to 
rally for a generation. 

Meantime, when Napoleon seized Spain, the Spanish Ameri- 
can states refused to recognize his authority, and so became 
virtually independent under governments of their own. At 
first, most of these new governments were in name loyal to the 
Spanish crown. During the next few years, however, the 
Spanish Americans experienced the benefits of freedom and of 
free trade with the world, and began to follow the example of 
the United States, which had so recently been merely a group 
of European colonies. By 1820, all the Spanish states on the 
continent of America had become virtually independent nations * 
— in which movement they had been directly encouraged by 
England and the United States. 

After the fall of Napoleon, the Spanish king, Ferdinand, re- 
turned to his throne. He had promised to maintain the new 

• Special report : the story of the heroic Bolivar. 
340 



" THE HOLY ALLIANCE " 



341 



constitution ; but he soon broke his pledges, restored all the old 
iniquities, and cruelly persecuted the Liberal heroes of the " war 
of liberation." 

In 1820 he collected troops to subdue the revolted American 
colonies ; but the service was unpopular, and one of the regi- 
ments, instead of embarking, raised the standard of revolt 
and proclaimed the Constitution of 1812. Tumult followed in 
Madrid. The king, cowardly as he was treacherous, yielded, 
called the Cortes, and restored the constitution. 

This Spanish Revolution of 1820 became the signal for like 
attempts in other states. Before the year closed, Portugal and 
Naples both forced their kings to grant constitutions modeled 
upon that of Spain. Early in the next year, the people and 
army of Piedmont ^ rebelled, to secure a constitution for the 
Kingdom of Sardinia. Lombardy and Venetia stirred rest- 
lessly in the overpowering grasp of Austria. And the Greeks 
began a long and heroic struggle for independence against 
Turkey. 

This widespread unanimity of action was due in part to secret 
revolutionary societies, already in existence. The most im- 
portant of these was the Carbonari ("charcoal burners"). 
It had been formed in Italy in the time of Napoleon, to drive 
out the French, and was continued there to drive out Austrian 
rule and to unite Italv. 



The Spanish 
Revolution 
of 1820 



Revolution 
spreads 
through 
the South 
of Europe 



We have seen how Metternich used the Germanic Confeder- 
acy, designed for protection against foreign attack, to stifle 
liberalism in Germany. We are now to observe how he adroitly 
twisted an alliance of monarchs from its original purpose in order 
to crush these revolutions in Southern Europe. 

After Waterloo, while the four "Allies" were still in Paris Interven- 

(November 20, 1815), they agreed to preserve their union f!"^^ ^ . 

and to hold meetings from time to time. The purpose was to Alliance " 

guard against any future aggression by France. But when the 

' Piedmont (" Foot of the Mount") was th^ district between the Alps and 
the plains of Lombardy. It was the most important part of the Kingdom of 
Sardinia. 



342 



REVOLUTIONS OF 1820-1821 



England 
protests 



revolutions of 1820 began, Metternich assembled the absolute 
sovereigns of Austria, Russia, and Prussia in a "Congress" at 
Troppau, where they signed gladly a declaration that they 
would intervene to put down revolution against any established 
government. This principle of "intervention.'^ was a proclama- 
tion that the "divine right" monarchs would support one 
another against the nations. It was directed against the right 
of a people to make its government for itself. 

England protested against this doctrine, both before and 
after the meeting, and formulated in opposition to it the prin- 
ciple of "non-intervention." This was the doctrine that each 
nation should manage its internal affairs as it chose. On this 
issue, England now withdrew from the alliance of 1815. Un- 
daunted by England's protests, however, a decision to enforce 
the Troppau program was adopted by the united eastern despots, 
known popularly from this time as the Holy Alliance. 



This name belongs strictly not to this outgrowth of the political 
alliance of November, 1815, but to a wholly different league organized 
two months earlier by the Tsar, under the influence of strong religious 
emotion. In September, 1815, Alexander had presented to the mon- 
archs a brief agreement whereby the signers would promise to govern 
their respective peoples as "branches of one Christian nation" in 
accordance with "the precepts of justice, charity, and peace." (Penn- 
sylvania Reiprints, I, No. 3.) No one took very seriously this "pious 
verbiage," as Metternich called it, except the Tsar himself and his- 
friend Frederick William of Prussia; but, from motives of courtesy, 
it was signed by every Christian ruler on the continent, except the pope. 
This League called itself the "Holy Alliance,'' but it never had exist- 
ence except on paper. Its name came to be applied to the Troppau league, 
— so different in composition and purpose. The confusion was helped 
by the fact that the three despotic sovereigns who signed the Troppau 
agreement were also %hB first three signers of the "Holy Alliance." 



The first success of the despot league came in divided and 
helpless Italy. A few months after Troppau, the three allied 
monarchs met again at Laibach. With them now was Ferdi- 
nand of Naples, another treacherous Bourbon king. He had 
sworn solemnly to uphold the new Neapolitan constitution 



•' THE HOLY ALLIANCE " 343 

(p. 341), and had invoked the vengeance of Heaven upon his 
head if he should prove unfaithful. But at the moment of these 
protestations he was in secret correspondence with Metternich, 
and now he came to Laibach for help to regain his absolutism. 
The Laibach meeting sent an Austrian army to Naples. The 
Neapolitans were defeated ; and Ferdinand returned, surrounded * 

by Austrian bayonets, to glut his vengeance upon the Liberals, 
with dungeon and scaffold. 

Three days after the Neapolitan defeat came a revolt in 
Piedmont (March 10, 1821). The "Congress of Laibach" 
promptly marched eighty thousand Austrians into North Italy, 
while one hundred thousand Russians were held ready to 
support them ; and the Piedmontese were easily crushed. 

Flushed with success, the " Holy Alliance " determined next to Spanish 

overthrow also the Spanish constitution, from which the "con- ^o"^*'*"" 
^ tionalism 

tagion of liberty " had spread. In 1822 the despotic Powers were crushed 
summoned to a Congress at Verona, and now they were joined 
by France. England again protested vigorously. The French 
representative tried to reconcile England by pleading that a 
constitution might be all very well in Spain, but that it should 
be a constitution granted by the king, not one forced upon him 
by rebels against his authority. Wellington, the English rep- 
resentative, Tory though he was, fitly answered this " divine 
right" plea: "Do you not know, sir, that it is not kings who 
make constitutions, but constitutions that make kings?" 

But, against this "Holy Alliance" of despots, England could 
do no more than protest, so far as war upon the continent was 
concerned ; and, with the sanction of the " crowned conspira- 
tors of Verona" (as Sydney Smith called them in England), a 
French army restored the old absolutism in Spain. Then the 
Bourbon Ferdinand in Spain, like his namesake in Naples, 
busied himself for many months in a reactionary "Reign of 
Terror" — infinitely more despicable, more senseless, more cruel, 
and more harmful, than any that "revolutionists" in Europe 
have ever perpetrated. (Cf. pp. 110, 143.) Meantime Metter- 
nich was congratulating himself with "pious" blasphemy, "God 



344 



" THE HOLY ALLIANCE " 



seems willing to use me as his instrument to restore order to 
Europe." 

The next wish of the " Holy Alliance " was to restore monarchic 
control in the revolted Spanish colonies. But here they failed. 
On the sea England was supreme. The Allies could not reach 
America without her consent, and she made it known that she 
would oppose the intended expedition with all her great might. 
Once more, as in Napoleon's day and in Philip II's, and now 
again in the HohenzoUerns', the Enghsh sea power saved liberty, 

America shares in the credit of checking the despots. Can- 
ning, the English minister, urged the United States to join 
England in an alliance to protect Spanish America. The 
United States chose to act without formal alliance,^ but it did 
act along the same lines. President Monroe's message to 
Congress in 1823 announced to the world that this country 
would oppose any attempt of the despotic Powers to extend 
their "political system" to America.' Probably the decided 
position of either England or the United States would have 
caused the Powers to abandon their project. Acting together, 
the two nations were certainly irresistible in America ; and 
the " Holy Alliance " quietly dropped its plan. 



When reproached afterward, in Parliament, for not having 
done more to preserve constitutionalism in Spain, Canning 
replied with the proud boast, " I called the New World into 
existence to redress the balance of the Old." It is possible 
to argue that both America and England acted from selfish 
motives, rather than from love of liberty. England wanted 
to keep her commerce with the free Spanish states ; and the 
United States objected to the neighborhood of a strong 
Power that might interfere with her leadership or with her 
safety. There is no doubt, however, that, along with 
these proper though selfish motives, both countries were 
actuated also by principle and by sympathy with freedom. 

1 See West's American People, p. 425 ff. 

• This is one part of the famous Monroe Doctrine. 



GREEK INDEPENDENCE 345 

The accusation against Canning and the tone of his reply 
show what the real feeling of the English people was. 

Almost at once Metternich met another check, in the affairs of 
Greece. The rising there had been accompanied by terrible 
massacres of all Turks dwelling. in the country, and the exasper- 
ated Turkish government was now putting down the rebellion 
by a war of extermination. For a time ]\Ietternicli| hoped to 
bring about intervention by the allied Powers to restore Turkish 
authority ; but he failed from two causes. 

1 . The educated classes of M 'estern Europe had been nourished Greek 

mainly on the ancient Greek literature (p. 1'32), and now their '"depend- 

. . ence 

imagination was fired by the thought that this struggle against secured 

the Turks was a contest akin to that ancient war against the 
Persians which Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch, and iEschylus 
had made glorious to them. The man who did most to widen 
this sympathy was Byron, the English poet. He closed a 
career of mingled genius and generosity and wrongdoing by a 
noble self-devotion, giving fortune and life to the Greek cause ; 
and his poems, invoking the magic of the old names of Mara- 
thon and Salamis, stirred Europe to passionate enthusiasm. 
No schoolboy to-day can read the stirring lyric, " The Isles of 
Greece," without quicker pulse-beat ; but the European youth 
of Byron's time were moved more deeply than the present 
generation can easily understand by the allusions in such pas- 
sages as these : 

"Standing on the Persian's grave, 
I could not deem myself a slave" ; 



" Ye have the letters Cadmus gave ; 
Think ye he meant them for a slave !" 

Numbers of volunteers followed Byron to fight for Greek 
liberty, and before any government had taken action, the Turks 
complained that they had to fight all Europe. 

2. The Russian people, untouched by this Western passion, still 
felt a deep sympathy for the Greeks as their co-religionists, and a 



346 .REVOLUTIONS OF 1S20 

deeper hatred for the Turks as their hereditary foes ; and so 
Metternich lost his chief ally. For though the Tsar at first 
discountenanced the Greek rising, and even punished Russian 
officers who had encouraged it, still he was too much influenced 
by the feeling of his people to join in open intervention against 
the revolution. 

Finally, indeed, intervention came, but for the Greeks, not 
against them. The English, French, and Russian fleets had 
proceeded to Greece to enforce a truce, so as to permit negotia- 
tion. The three fleets were acting together under the lead of 
the English admiral, who happened to be the senior officer. 
Almost by chance, and chiefly through the excited feelings of the 
common sailors, the fleets came into conflict with the Turkish 
fleet, and annihilated it in the l^attle of Navarino (October, 
1827). The English commander had gone beyond his instruc- 
tions, but excited public feeling gave the government no chance 
to disown him. So the three Powers forced Turkey to grant 
independence to the Greeks. 

Elsewhere, however, Metternich was triumphant. Distant 
Greece did not affect his system in Western Europe — and the 
success of the Greeks did not come an^nvay for many years. 
For ten years after the overthrow of the gallant Spanish Revolu- 
tion, the reactionists had things their own way from England 
to Greece. 

The next attack on Metternich' s system came from France in 
1830. That story demands that ive survey the story of France 
from Waterloo. 



CHAPTER XXII 

FRANCE AND THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1830 

When Louis XVIII became king (p. 32")), he saw that France TheBour- 
must have some guarantee of the personal rights which the Revo- . " divme 
lution had won. He refused indeed to accept a constitution monarchy 
which the old Senate of Napoleon tried to force upon him, but 
he himself gave to the nation the "Charter of 1815." In this 
way he saved the theory of "divine right." The preamble 
expressly declared the king the source of all authority. But 
the provisions of the document, otherwise, closely resembled 
the rejected constitution, and gave the people of France more 
liberty than any other large country on the continent then had. 

The legislature had two Houses, — the Peers, appointed for The 
life by the king, and the Deputies. These last were elected; '^^*'^?,'^ 
but a very high property qualification let only one man in 
seventy vote. To be eligible for election, a man had to be 
still more wealthy, — so much so that in some districts it was 
hard to find any one to send to the legislature. The king 
kept an absolute veto and the sole right to propose laws. 

Purchasers of the church lands (confiscated and sold during 
the Revolution) were guaranteed in title. Religious liberty, 
equality before the law, free speech, and freedom of the press 
were confirmed. In local government, the centralized system 
of Napoleon was retained. 

In 1824 Louis was succeeded by his brother, Charles X, Charles X 

who was an extreme reactionary. He wanted to restore lands to fWempts 

. . I . further 

the church, to give it control of all education, and to punish reaction 

all old Revolutionists. By force and fraud, aided by the 

limitations on voting, the government secured a reactionary 

legislature. Then the king and legislature curtailed the free- 

347 



348 REVOLUTIONS OF 1830 

dom of the press, closed the historical lectures of the famous 
Guizot (a very moderate Liberal), joined the other crowned 
conspirators of Verona in overthrowing liberty in Spain (p. 343), 
plundered -1200,000,000 from the national treasury for returned 
Emigrants, and strengthened still further the influence of 
the oligarchy by giving the largest landlords a double vote. 

Even this legislature, however, annoyed Charles because of 
the vigorous protests of the few Liberals ; and in 1827 he dis- 
solved it, expecting under the new law to secure a still more 
submissive body. 

The issue was drawn clearly. Thiers, a brilliant young 
journalist, preached the constitutional theory in the words 
"The king reigns, but does not govern," and he made repeated 
and significant references in his paper to the English Revolution 
of 1688. On the other hand, Charles announced frankly that 
he regarded the legislature only as an advisory council. 

The elections showed that even the narrow body of voters 
was earnestly opposed to the king's doctrine. The intellect of 
France and the influential part of the press were with the Liberal 
party ; and, despite all court influence, the Liberals received a 
decisive majority. 

When Charles still tried lo rule through a ministry of Ultras, 
the Assembly issued a bold address (March 2, 1830), calling for 
the dismissal of the ministry, that "menace to public safety." 
The address was carried by a vote of 221 to 182. Charles at 
once dissolved the Chamber. Public interest was intense, and 
the aged Lafayette journeyed through France to organize the 
Liberals for the contest at the polls. The new elections in 
June destroyed the Ultra party. Every deputy who had voted 
against the ministry was reelected, and the Liberals gained also 
fifty of the remaining seats. 
July Twice defeated by the votes of even the oligarchic landlords, 

but no whit daunted, the stubborn monarch tried a coup d'etat. 
He suspended the Charter by a series of edicts, known as the 
July Ordinances. These Ordinances (1) forbade the publication 
of newspapers without royal approval, (2) dissolved the new 



END OF "DIVINE RIGHT" IN FRANCE 349 

legislature (which had not yet met), (3) promulgated a new law 
for elections so as to put control even more into the hands of 
reactionaries, and (4) ordered the election of another legislature. 

Metternich had foreseen this deed, and its probable result. 
He lamented the free press and the representative system in 
France ; but he warned the French ambassador that an attempt 
now to do away with these "plague spots" would ruin the dy- 
nasty: "The men of lead," said he, "are on- the side of the 
Constitution; Charles X should rem'ember 1789." 

The Ordinances were published July 26, 1S30. Forty -one 
journalists of Paris at once printed a protest, declaring the 
ordinances illegal and calling upon France to resist them. 
The journalists had in mind only legal resistance, not violence ; 
but there were in Paris a few old Revolutionists who were ready 
to go further, and they were powerful in a crisis because of their 
organization in secret societies. 

The same evening these radicals decided upon revolt, and 
appointed "Committees of Insurrection" for the various dis- 
tricts of the city. The next morning angry crowds thronged 
the streets, and threw up barricades out of paving stones. 
That night Lafayette reached Paris, to take charge of the revolt, 
and on the following morning the fighting began. 

The 28th, 29th, and 30th are the "Three Days of July." The " July 
On the 28th the crowd cried, "Down with the ministry!" but, ^^^ 
as their blood became heated with fighting, they began to shout, 
"Down with the Bourbons !" The regular troops lacked good 
leadership, and they hated to fire on the rebel flag, — the old 
tricolor. About four thousand men were slain in the three days. 
At his palace at St. Cloud, in the suburbs, the king hunted as 
usual ; and, on each evening, messengers from the sorely beset 
troops were kept waiting overnight, so as not to disturb the The end 
royal game of whist, while the scepter was slipping forever from °! dmne- 
the old line of "divine-right" French kings. Suddenly Charles France 
opened his eyes to his danger, and fled to England. Outside 
Paris, there was no fighting, but the nation gladly accepted this 
"Second French Revolution," 



350 



REVOLUTION IN 1830 



The "Divine-Right monarchy" in France was replaced by a 
constitutional kingship. The legislature, which Charles had 
tried to dissolve, restored the tricolor as the flag of France, 
made the Charter into a more liberal constitution, and then 
offered the crown to Louis Philippe (a distant cousin of Charles), 
on condition that he accept this amended Charter. The old Charter 
had declared that the king ruled "by the grace of God." The 
new document added the words, "and by the will of the nation." 
In actual fact, Louis XVIII had ruled by hereditary title, and had 
given a charter to France. Louis Philippe, "King of the Bar- 
ricades," ruled by election, and a constitution was imposed upon 
him . 

In this vital respect, the Second French Revolution corre- 
sponded to the English Revolution of 1688. In other ways it 
did not go so far. It did (1) give to the legislature the right to 
introduce bills, and (2) double the number of voters, extending 
the franchise to all who paid forty dollars in direct taxes, and 
lowering the age qualifications from forty years to thirty years. 
This still left twenty-mine men out of thirty without votes, making 
a voting body of less than 200,000 in a total population of some 
30,000,000. 

As a youth Louis Philippe had taken the side of the First Revolution 
in 1789, and had fought gallantly in the French Revolutionary armies, 
until the extremists drove him into exile. Then, instead of joining the 
royalist emigrants in their attacks on France, he had fled to England and 
America, — where he earned his living by teaching French. 

This "Second French Revolution" was followed by revolts 
over all Europe. For a moment, Metternich's system tottered. 
Belgium broke away from the king of Holland, to whom the 
Congress of Vienna had given it. Poland rose against the Tsar, 
to whom the Congress had given it. The states of Italy rose 
against Austria and the Austrian satellites, to whom the Congress 
had given them. And in Germany there were uprisings in all 
absolutist states, to demand the constitutions which the Congress 
had not given. 

The final gains, however, were not so vast as at first they 



AND REACTION IN GERMANY 351 

seemed. Belgium did become an independent monarchy, with Gains and 
the most liberal constitution on the continent. To that country °^^^^ *° 
as well as to France the Revolution brought permanent profit. 
Indeed France joined England in protecting Belgium against 
"intervention" — so that Metternich called London and Paris 
"the two mad-houses of Europe." A chief gain of the 1830 
revolutions was that constitutional France was definitely lost 
to the divine-right Holy Alliance. 

But Tsar Nicholas crushed the Poles, took away the con- 
stitution that Alexander had given them during his rule, and 
made Alexander's "Kingdom of Poland" into a mere Russian 
province. Austria crushed the Italian revolts. And though 
four small German states secured constitutions, still the general 
despotic character of the Germanic Confederacy was not modi- 
fied. While Austria was busied in Italy, it is true, there had 
seemed some hope of progress for Germany ; but Metternich 
soon had his hands free, and at once he set about restoring 
"order." 

Still, reaction had lost much of its vigor and confidence, 
and it was being slowly undermined by a quiet but growing 
public opinion. Metternich's genius sufficed to keep his sys- 
tem standing, as long as it was not disturbed from without ; 
but when the next year of Revolutions came, that system fell 
forever in Western Europe. 

That successful "Revolution of 1848" began in France, but 
it was to be the work of a new class of workingmen, — factory 
workers, — who themselves were the product of a new industrial 
system that had grown up first in England. We mu^st go back for 
that story (see Part VI below). 



PART VI 

ENGLAND AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE REVOLUTION IN METHODS OF WORK 

While France was giving the world her first great social and 
political revolution, with noise and blood, toward the close 
of the eighteenth century, England had been working out 
quietly an even greater revolution which was to change the 
work and daily life of the masses of men and women and chil- 
dren over all the world. This "revolution" was at first a 
change in the ways in which certain kinds of work were done ; 
so we call it "the Industrial Revolution." 

Not all the legislation of the great French Convention of 
'93, nor Napoleon's "forty victories," nor even his code that 
would "live forever," nor the assembled statesmen at Vienna, 
— nor all these together, — had so much to do in deciding how 
you and I should live to-day as did this Industrial Revolution 
which we are now to study. It was not wrought by kings, or 
diplomats, or generals, or even by dazzling intellectual geniuses, 
but by humble workers busied in homely toil, puzzling day 
after day over wheels and belts and rollers and levers, seeking 
some way to save time. 

Our life and labor differs far more widely from that of our 
great-great-grandfathers in the time of the American Revolu- 
tion, than their life and labor differed from that of men in the 
time of Charlemagne a thousand years before. In the days of 
Voltaire and George Washington, men raised grain, and wove 
cloth, and carried their spare products to market, in almost 
precisely the same way in which these things had been done 

352 



THE WORLD OF 1750 353 

for four thousand or six thousand years. The discovery of 
America had added corn (maize) and he potato to the world's 
food plants, and had enormously increased the production of 
sugar (in the West Indies) and so made its use more general. 
But in Europe itself a farmer rarely had as great a variety of 
vegetables in his garden as the ancient Egyptian or Roman 
farmer had. The English or American or French farmer with 
strenuous toil scratched the soil with a clumsy wooden plow 
not unlike those shown on Egyptian monuments six thousand 
years old. He had no other machine for horses to draw, except 
a rude harrow and a cart, almost as ancient in style. He sowed 
his grain by hand, cut it with the sickle of ancient times, and 
threshed it out with the prehistoric flail, if he did not tread it 
out on his barn floor by cattle, as the old Egyptians did. 

Carpenters' tools, too, did not differ much, either in number 
or style, from a set, four thousand \ears old, found recently in 
Crete. Blacksmiths and masons used tools as ancient in origin. 
The seventeenth century had seen the invention of sawmills 
driven by water power (like the earlier grist mills) ; but these 
only cut the logs into rough boards. All planing and other 
dressing of lumber was still done by hand, as was also all the 
work now done by machines in furniture factories and joiners' 
shops. Merchandise was still carried from place to place on 
pack horses or mules, or sometimes in clumsy carts sinking to 
the axles in muddy roads ; and travel was mainly on horseback, 
though slow coaches toiled along on a few main roads, six 
horses to each vehicle. 

Household lights were still dim, ill-smelling candles or smoky 
and flaring torches. If a householder carelessly let the fire in 
his fireplace go out, he borrowed live coals from a neighbor, or 
struck sparks into tinder with flint and steel. If man or child 
had to have an arm amputated, the pain had to be borne with- 
out the merciful aid of anesthetics. The few cities were still 
medieval. London and Vienna boa.sted of lamp posts, but the 
dim light was supplied by a poorly burning oil. In Paris, on 
the main streets, the mud lay a foot deep in rainy weather. 



354 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 

Arthur Young, in 1787, wrote of Paris, — "Walking, which in 
London is so pleasant and clean that ladies do it every day ( ! ), is 
here a toil and a fatigue to a man, and an impossibility to a 
well-dressed woman." 

The first improvements came in England — in agriculture. 
Early in the eighteenth century, landlords had introduced a 
better system of "crop-rotation," raising roots like beets and 




Farm Tools in 1800 : all shown here except the wagon. 

turnips on the field formerly left fallow (p. 67). This proved 
just as good for the ground, and the added root crops made it 
possible to feed more cattle. Besides the direct profits, the addi- 
tional cattle furnished more manure, which enriched the soil 
and increased all crops. English gentlemen, accordingly, felt 
encouraged to breed better cattle and sheep, and so to produce 
more beef and wool. ■ 

Mechanical invention in agriculture came a little later. 
In 1785 the first threshing machine was invented, and enter- 



IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 



355 



prising "gentlemen farmers" soon began to use it; but it was 
exceedingly crude. The cast-iron plow appeared about 1800. 
This was soon to work a marvelous revolution in farming — 
permitting deeper plowing and more rapid work ; but for some 
time, even in America, farmers were generally prejudiced 
against it, asserting that the iron "poisoned" the ground. 
The cradle scythe — a hand tool, but a vast improvement on 
the old sickle for harvesting grain — was patented in America 




Modern Plowing — since 1900. The tractor, steam or gasoline, is an 
American invention. Note the width of the swath, and remember that 
the movement forward is much more rapid than any horse can plow. 
Note, too, the comfort in which the men work. 

in 1803. Drills, seeders, mowers, reapers, binders^ were still 
in the future ; but in 1800 the era of farm machinery was just 
at hand. 



When these changes in agricultural production were just The 
beginning, there came also a change in transportation. England ^^ trans- 
began to improve her main roads about 1750, building "turn- portation 
pikes," with frequent barriers where tolls were collected from 
travelers to keep up repairs. A Scotch engineer, MacAdam, 



356 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



gave his name to "macadamized roads." Before the American 
Revolution began, Englishmen were boasting of the " astounding 
change" in rapidity of travel and transport of goods. 




Copyright by Underwood and Underwood. 
A Spinning Wheel still in use in Switzerland. Its use is common also in 
rural parts of the Balkans and of Scandinavia. 

In a few years they had even better reason for such boasts. 
The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians had dug canals and 
used them to carry goods. Louis XIV and Frederick the 



IN SPINNING AND WEAVING 



357 



Great had constructed a few in France and Prussia. But 
now England gave canals a wholly new importance in com- 
merce. The first one with a system of locks, to permit a boat 
to pass from one level to another, was built in 1761, to bring 
coal to Manchester from a mine seven miles away. And 
before 1800, England was better supplied with canals than 
she had been with roads in 1700. The boats were "towed" 




Courtesy of the Great Falls Mfg. Company, Somersworth, N. H. 
Modern Spinning Machinery. 



by horses driven along a tow path. One horse could draw 
many times the weight he could draw on land over even 
the best roads, and most bulky merchandise was soon carried 
by the new water roads. 



The change that was really to revolutionize the working so- The revo- 
ciety, however, came not in farming nor in transportation, but "*^°". ''^ 
in manufacturing, — and first in spinning. In Queen Eliza- 
beth's time the fiber of flax or wool was drawn into thread 



358 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



Water 
power for 
hand power 



by the distaff and spindle, as among the Stone Age "Lake 
Dwellers," four or five millenniums before. But in the seven- 
teenth century in England, the distaff was replaced by the 
spinning wheel, — run first by one hand, but afterward by the 
foot of the spinner. Even the wheel, however (such as may 
now and then still be found tucked away in an old attic), drew 
out only one thread at a time. To spin thread enough to weave 
into the cloth for a family's clothing was a serious task. A 
weaver with his clumsy hand loom could weave all the thread 
that eight spinners could supply. Weavers didn't get thread 
fast enough, and soon after 1750 they began to think about 
swifter ways to secure it. In 1761 the English Royal Society 
for the Encouragement of Manufactures offered a prize for an 
invention for swifter spinning. Three years later, in 1764 
(the last year of Louis XIV in France), an English weaver, 
James Har greaves, noticed that his wife's spinning wheel, 
tipped over on the floor, kept whirling away for a surprising 
time. Taking a hint from this new position, he invented a 
machine where one wheel turned eight spindles, and spun eight 
threads, instead of one. Hargreaves called the new machine 
the "Jenny," from his wife's name. Soon it was improved so 
as to spin sixteen threads at a time. 

The thread was not satisfactory, however, for all parts of 
cloth manufacture; but in 1775 Richard Arkioright, a barber 
and peddler, devised a new sort of spinner without spindles. 
He ran his wool or cotton through a series of rollers revolving 
at different rates, to draw out the thread; and he drove these 
rollers hy water power, not by hand, and so called his machine a 
"Water Frame." Four years later (1779), Samuel Cromptoyi, an 
English weaver, ingeniously combined the best features of the 
"Jenny" and the "Water Frame" into a new machine which 
he called "the mule'' — in honor of this mixed parentage. With 
" the mule," one spinner could spin two hundred threads at a time. 



Crompton received $300 from the manufacturers, who 
piled up wealth from his invention ! He was a shy man, 



IN SPINNING AND WEAVING 359 

who spent his Hfe in poverty, making his "mule" and im- 
proving it. When he was sixty years old, Parliament 
gave him $25,000 (in 1820), as a recognition of his services 
to England; but he spent this in attempting new inven- 
tions, and died extremely poor, in 1827. 

Two hundred threads seem few enough to us, acquainted 
with machinery such that a man, with one or two boys, winds 



Copyright by Underwood and Underwood. 
A Primitive Loom in Japan To-day 

twelve thousand spools at once; but in the latter part of the 
eighteenth century, "the mule" was a revolution, and it pro- 
duced other revolutions. Now the tvcavers had too much thread; 
they could not keep up with the spinners, and it was necessary 
to improve their processes. 

The weavers still used the hand loom, older than any of the The 

records of history. Threads were first drawn out lengthwise on 5®^°'"*'°° 
•^ ^ _ in weaving 

a frame : this made the warp. Then the weaver drove his 



360 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



shuttle by hand back and forth between those threads with the 
woof (cross threads). Edmund Cartwright, a clergyman of the 
church of England, gave his energies to discovering a better pro- 
cess, and in 1784 (the year after England surrendered America) 
he patented a "power loom," in which the shuttle threw itself back 



PTriyp 


™- fl 


\ 

V 


^H »•'! 


iffflP^* 'Y -^ 


X 'W^ 


99"^^ 


i' 



Courtesy of the Draper Company, Hopedale, Massachusetts. 
A Modern Loom. 



and forth automatically. Then the weavers could keep up easily ; 
and by later improvements, before 1800, it became possible for 
one man to weave more cloth than two hundred could in 1770. 
The next need was more cotton read}^ to spin. Eli Whitney, 
in America, met this by inventing his Cotton Gin, wherewith 
one slave could clean as much fiber from the seed as three 



STEAM AND IRON 



361 



hundred had been able to clean before. This was in 1793. 
In that year the United States exported 200,000 pounds of 
cotton. In 1800 the amount was 20,000,000 pounds, and in 
1803, 40,000,000 pounds. All this went to feed the new 
manufactures in England. 

Two minor inventions accompanied these greater ones. In- 
stead of bleaching cloth white slowly by air and sunshine, a 




Courtesy of the Library of Congress. 
An Early Cotton Gin. 



way was found to do it swiftly by using a chemical (chlorine). 
And instead of printing patterns on cotton cloth (calico) with 
little blocks, — first a block of one color, and then one of another, 
— the patterns were soon graven on rollers which printed all 
the colors at one time as the cloth passed over them. 

The next need was a better power to drive the new machines. 
Water had largely replaced hand power; but water sometimes 
failed, and it was not present at all in many places where it 
would have been welcome. This need was supplied by James 
Watt's improvements on the steam engine. 



The steam 
engine 



362 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



Improve- 
ments in 
working 
iron 



The remarkable English friar, Roger Bacon (p. 103), before 
1300, had speculated on the expansive power of steam as a 
motive power for the future, and a nobleman of Charles Fs 
time is believed to have constructed a steam engine that pumped 
water ; but, if he did, the invention and inventor both perished 
in the civil war between king and Parliament.^ At all events, in 
the second half of the eighteenth century, steam engines had 
been invented that could pump water, and they were used to 
draw water out of flooded mines. These engines, howevjer, 
had only an up-and-down movement ; they were clumsy and 
slow ; and they wasted steam and fuel. James Watt, an instru- 
ment-maker, was called upon to repair a model for such an 
engine, and became interested in removing these defects. By 
1785, he had constructed engines that worked much more 
swiftly, economically, and powerfully, and ivhich could transmit 
their power to tvheels (and so drive -machinery) by an arrange- 
ment of shafts and cranks. 

In 1785 steam was first used to drive spinning machinery. 
Fifteen years later, there were more steam engines in England 
than water wheels, and four had found their way to America. 



One more series of inventions completed this wonderful 
circle of the eighteenth century, where one discovery had 
so led on to another. Engines and power machines could 
be built in a satisfactory manner only from iron ; but in 
1790 the manufacture of iron was still slow and costly, and 
the product was poor stuff. In that year, however, steam 
began to be used to furnish a new blowing apparatus which 
gave a steady blast of air, in place of the old bellows and 
like arrangements. This made possible more rapid and more 
perfect work in iron. Soon, too, new and better ways were 
found to change the brittle " castings" into malleable " wrought" 
iron. 

Thus, by 1800, the "age of steam and iron" had begun in Eng- 
land, and to some degree in America. The continent of Europe 

' George McDonald's St. George and St. Michael tells the story. 



STEAM AND IRON 



363 



remained closed against it for some years longer, by Napoleon's 
Continental System ; but on his fall it began to win its way 
there also; 

Since prehistoric man found ways to make fire and bake pots 
and spin and weave (with spindle and loom) and extract iron 
from ore, there had been no change in man's work that com- 
pared in any degree with this tremendous revolution in the 



1^^^^^ 
^'-.||i 



#|j'iiiliiil 










Courtesy of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Comvany. 
A Part of the Steel Works in Pueblo, Colorado, To-day. 

latter half of the eighteenth century. The American Revolu- 
tion and even the greater French Revolution were dwarfed by 
the gigantic Industrial Revolution. 

Before we leave this age of invention, we must note two America 

applications of the steam engine, and also a few separate inven- ?°** ^fy 

..,,„. . inventions 

tions, m all of which America had a large share. 

Some of Watt's engines, we said, found their way to America 

before 1800. Here, in that day, the chief need was locomotion. 



364 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



The 
steamboat 



And, since there was no time at first to build roads over our 
vast territory, we wanted first locomotion by water. Rivers 
were used to carry goods easily down the current ; but some 
means to force a boat upstream was needed. Therefore, in 
America, ingenious mechanics at once sought to apply the new 
steam engine to navigation, — and produced the steamboat. 

As early as 1789, John Fitch, a poor, unschooled carpenter 
with wonderful inventive genius, built a ferryboat with paddles 
driven by a steam engine of his own make. He even ran this 
boat up the river at Philadelphia, as well as down, and showed 
it there for some months. But men with monev in America 




The Clermont. From the model in the National Mu.seum at Washington. 

were still old-fashioned ; and Fitch could not raise money to 
extend the use of his invention. He next tried his fortune in 
the new West, where such motive power was sadly needed, but 
with no better success ; and finally, in bitter disappointment 
and despair, he killed himself in a Kentucky tavern. 

During those same years Philadelphia had another neglected 
genius, Oliver Evans, who also built a steam engine suited for 
locomotion ; but, like Fitch, he failed to secure money to carry 
his invention to practical success. Soon after, however, Robert 
Fulton was more fortunate. He, too, met with one rebuff. 
He olfered his steamboat to Napoleon as a means whereby 
that baffled conqueror might transport his waiting army from 
Boulogne to England, in spite of Enghsh sailing vessels (p. 316). 



STEAMBOAT AND RAILWAY 



365 



Happily for freedom, Napoleon repulsed him disdainfully and 
stupidly as a faker — and so lost the chance to become undis- 
puted master of the world, And some three years later Fulton 
secured money from Chancellor Livingstone of New York, 
In 1807, amid jeers of the lookers-on, he launched The 
Clermont, furnished with an engine from England, and made 
a trial trip up the Hudson, from New York to Albany, at about 
five miles an hour. The next year a regular line of steamboats 
plied between the two cities, and men were eagerly waiting for 
them elsewhere. 

In*1811 The Orleans was launched on the Ohio at Pittsburg, 
to voyage to the distant city for which it was named. The 





l.iij 


IgSq^.^JIs^tl 1 1— H 


aeit^ ^feH-j-t-T^r-r^ 1 f Jl-i 




IMP 


^^^^^ 


* 





First Steam Passenger Train i.n Ami^kka i November 1.^;, ih31). The 
engme was modeled upon Stephenson's "Rocket," which, some months 
before, had drawn a train from Manchester to Liverpool. 



War of 1812 interrupted steamboat building, but in 1820 sixtj'^ 
such vessels plied the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi, and 
some of them were finding their way up the muddy Missouri, 
between herds of astonished buffalo. 

If steam could drive boats, why not coaches on land ? Experi- 
ments began at once for steam locomotives. 

The horse "tramways" had been in use in England, especially 
at the mines, for many years — merely a short line of rails on 
which loaded carts could be drawn more easily than on the bare 
ground. Soon after 1800, a Cornishman, Richard Trevethick, 
used a steam engine to furnish the power for a short tramway ; 
but this was merely a siationary engine of the ordinary type. 
The problem was to get a traveling engine. In 1811 John 
Stevens, in America, began twenty years of vain effort to interest 



The 

steam 

railway 



366 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



moneyed men in his plan for such a "locomotive" ; but success 
was won first in England b.y George Stephenson, who had spent 
his poor, unschooled boyhood in helping his father tend a 
stationary pumping engine in a coal mine. 

In 1814, Stephenson completed a locomotive which was used 
to haul carts of coal on tramways from mines to a near-by canal. 




Harvesting in 1831. McCormick's first successful horse-reaper. The 
"self-binder" was a later feature. Here the three women and one man 
are tying the grain into bundles. This photograph, based upon a "re- 
construction," and the following one, are furnished by the International 
Harvester Company. 

Then, in 1825, a passenger line, twelve miles long, was opened in 
England ; and in 1828, in America, the aged Charles Carroll, one 
of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, drove the 
gold spike that marked the beginning of the great Baltimore and 
Ohio Railroad. In 1 833 a steam railway carried passengers from 
London to Liverpool in ten hours (a four-hour trip now), whereas 
the old stage-coach had taken sixty. The railway age had begun. 



AMERICA'S PART 



367 



The tremendous importance of the raihoad, however, did not 
show fully until some twenty years later. The early rails 
were of wood, protected from wear by a covering of iron " straps " 
— which had an awkward way of curling up at a loosened end. 
The cars were at first merely lines of "coaches," almost pre- 
cisely the old stage-coaches. The name coach still remains in 





Harvesting To-day. A Mogul Kerosene Tractor pulling two McCormick 
reajJers and binders with mechanical shockers. The tractor is managed 
by the man on the front reaper. Two men take the place of six human 
beings in the previous cut and do many times as much work. 

England, and the form was kept there, and elsewhere in Europe, 
until very recently ; but in America a more convenient form 
was soon introduced. Fifteen miles an hour on early roads was 
thought quite amazing. 



In many other ways, mechanical inventions began to affect 
human life soon after 1800. The rapidity with which they 
appeared may be judged partly from the records of the American 



368 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



Other 
leading 
industrial 
inventions 
— to 1850 



patent office. From 1790 to 1812 that office registered less 
than eighty new inventions a year. From 1812 to 1820 the 
number rose to about 200 a year, and in 1830 there were 544 
new patents issued. Twenty years later the thousand mark 
was passed, and in 1860 there were five thousand. 

These inventions mostly saved time or helped to make life 
more comfortable or more attractive. A few cases only can be 
mentioned from the bewildering mass. The McCormich reaper 
(to be drawn by horses) appeared in 1831, and multiplied the 
farmer's efficiency in the harvest field by twenty. (This released 
many men from food-production, and made more possible the 
growth of cities and of manufactures.) Planing mills created 
a new industry in woodworking. "CoWs revolver" (1835) re- 
placed the one-shot "pistol." Iron stoves began to rival the 
ancient fireplace, especially for cooking. Friction matches, 
invented in England in 1827, were the first improvement on 
prehistoric methods of making fire. Illuminating gas, for 
lighting city streets, made better order possible at night, 
and helped improve pubHc morals. In 1838 the English 
Great Western (with screw propeller instead of side paddles, and 
with coal to heat its boilers) established steam navigation be- 
tween Europe and America. The same year saw the first suc- 
cessful use of huge steam hammers, and of anthracite coal for 
smelting iron." In 1839 a Frenchman, Daguerre, began photog- 
raphy with his " daguerrotype." Still earlier, a French chemist 
had invented the canning of foods. In 1841 two Americans, 
Dr. Morton and Dr. Jackson, independently discovered the 
value of ether as an anesthetic, — 2in incomparable boon to 
suffering men and women. The magnetic telegraph, invented 
in 1835, was made effective in 1844. The Howe sewing machine 
was patented in 1846 ; and the next year saw the first rotary 
printing press. 

This book does not plan to treat American history at large, 
because that subject receives better attention in separate 
volumes. But this topic of invention cannot be discussed 
without entering the American field. In 1820 a famous Eng- 



AMERICA'S PART ' 369 

Hsh writer, influenced partly by the ugly feeling awakened by 
the War of 1812, had exclaimed, — " Who in the four quarters 
of the globe reads an American book, ... or. drinks out of 
American glasses, ... or sleeps in American blankets?" But 
in 1841 in Parliament a member of the English cabinet con- 
fessed that the great majority of helpful inventions came from 
America. 

For Further Reading. — Cheyney, Industrial and Social History 
of England, 203-223 ; Hobson, Evolution of Modern Capitalism ; Thurs- 
ton, Growth of the Steam Engine. 



CHAPTER XXIV 



THE REVOLUTION IN THE WORKERS' LIVES 



Rapid 
increase of 
wealth 



Gains and 
losses to 
the workers 



The introduction of machinery and of steam power produced 
at once (by 1800) tremendous changes in the lives of all men, 
but especially of workingmen. With the new machinery, labor 
produced much more wealth. Robert Owen, a cloth manufac- 
turer at New Lanark in Scotland, said in 1815 that his two 
thousand operatives produced more than all the workmen in 
Scotland forty years before.^ 

This change ought to have been purely good. It should 
have meant a gain for all the world. Especially it should 
have meant more comfort and more leisure for the workers. 
In practice, it meant something very different. Too large a 
share of the new wealth went to a new class of capitalists. 
This was not the fault of Hargreaves, Crompton, Watt, and their 
fellows : the fault lay in human society. 

Part of the increased wealth did go at last, and indirectly, to 
the common gain in lower prices. Every one, the workmen 
included, can buy cloth or hardware cheaper than before the In- 
dustrial Revolution began. This is a vast gain. It is the thing 
about the Revolution which justifies a vast deal of the suffer- 
ing that it has caused. It makes possible more life and some 
better life. 

But the revolution also resulted directly in much lower life for 
just those who, we should have supposed, would be the first bene- 
fited. This was particularly true in the beginning. To under- 
stand this we must look once more at the condition of work- 
men before the invention of machinery. 



1 Note that wealth is not money, 
obtained by labor. 



It is any desirable thing produced or 



370 



THE OLD DOMESTIC SYSTEM 371 

Under the "domestic system" (p. 185) all manufactures Workmen 
had been handmade (as the word "manufacture" signifies), ^^g ^[^ 
Hours of labor were long and profits were small, because there " Domestic 
was little surplus wealth to divide. But workmen worked in ^^ ®™ 
their own homes, under reasonably wholesome conditions. 
Their labor was varied. They owned their own tools. They 
had considerable command over their hours of toil. Their 
condition resembled that of the farmer of to-day more than that 
of the modern factory worker. 

Thus, in England and America especially, the artisan drew 
part of his support from the plot of ground about his cottage. 
Even the iron workers of Sheffield (famous for its cutlery since 
1400) lived in little homes surrounded each by its garden where 
the workman could spend a dull season profitably. Defoe, the 
author of Robinson Crusoe, describes a like condition which he 
saw among the weavers in Yorkshire, about 1725 : 

"The land was divided into small inclosures of from two acres to six or 
seven acres each, seldom more, every three or four pieces having a house 
belonging to them ; hardly a house standing out of speaking distance 
from another. ... At every considerable house there was a manu- 
factory. Every clothier keeps one horse at least to carry his manu- 
factures to market, and every one generally keeps a cow or two, or more, 
for his family. . . . The houses are full of lusty fellows, some at their 
dye vat, some at their looms, others dressing the cloth ; the women and 
children carding or spinning, all being employed from the youngest to 
the eldest." 

But hand workmen could not match tireless iron machines The tragedy 
driven by steam. They could not produce enough cloth — of sudden 
at the lower prices at which it was sold after 1800 — to support 
themselves even with the aid of their garden spots. The 
Industrial Revolution came swiftly — upturning the whole 
system of manufacturing before a hale man turned into an old 
one. The hand weavers were people slow to accept change. 
Many of them could not understand the drift of the times. 
They had gained, in generation after generation, a skill of which 
they were proud and which had made them envied by other 
workmen. They did not see how a new contrivance of wood and 



372 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



The new 

Factory 

tystem 



The new 
" capital- 
ist " 



iron could make that painfully gained skill of hand a worthless 
thing and cast them down into the position of wholly unskilled 
workers. Great numbers of the old weavers kept up the losing 
fight, for their lifetime, under harsher and harsher conditions ; ^ 
and, from time to time, such laborers rose in ignorant but 
natural riots to smash machinery and burn factories. 

This sort of tragedy has been repeated time after time with 
millions of workers, as the Industrial Revolution (which is 
still in progress) has replaced one process by a quicker one. 
It happened not long ago, when the linotype replaced hand 
typesetting. Masses of workers have paid for every gain to 
the world by terrible personal loss that destroyed families and 
ruined lives. Society, which profits so splendidly, has not yet 
learned how to insure its workers against this unfair loss. But, 
in 1800, the thing was new. There was no accident insurance 
or old-age insurance or pension system, such as many countries 
are now coming to have ; and the class of workmen who were 
ruined made a larger part of the total population than have ever 
again been so affected at one time. 

Still the most serious evils in 1800 fell not upon the workmen 
who kept up this hopeless fight against steam and machinery, 
but upon the hundreds of thousands of workmen who accepted 
the change and tried to work under it. 

The new machinery was costly. Workmen could not own it 
as they had owned their old tools. Nor did they know how to 
combine to own it in groups. It- all passed into the hands of 
wealthy men, who hired workers ("operatives") to "operate" 
it. This marks the beginning of a new organization of labor. 
The old slave system gave way to serfdom in agriculture and. 
to a gild organization in manufactures. Gilds gave way to the 
domestic system. And now the domestic system gave way to the 
present Capitalist system, or Wage system, or Factory system. 

The capitalist manufacturer was a new figure in European 
life (cf. pp. 94, 100), appearing first in England. There, by 
1800, the capitalists ranked alongside the country gentlemen 
1 George Eliot's Silas Mamer is the story of such a weaver. 



THE NEW CAPITALISTS 373 

and the merchant princes as the "upper" middle class, just 
below the titled nobility in social standing and often superior 
to them in wealth. The appearance of this new figure was in 
many ways a gain to society ; but there was also a bad side. 

The capitalist manufacturer was not himself a workman, like 
the old "master" in the gilds or in the domestic system. He 
was only an "employer." He erected great buildings called 
factories, filled them with costly machines, bought the necessary 
"raw material" (cotton, wool, or iron, as the case might be), 
and paid wages. 

And if the capitalist was a new figure in middle-class society, The new 
the capitalless and landless worker was a much more significant . f^°.' „ 
new figure in the "lower classes." Unlike the capitalist, he 
was a helpless one. He now furnished nothing but his hands. 
Great numbers of men wanted work ; and, moreover, much of 
the work on the new machinery could be done by women and 
children — especially in all cloth manufactures, where the 
work consisted largely in turning a lever, or tying broken threads, 
or cleaning machinery. Until the operatives learned how to 
combine, so as to bargain collectively, the capitalist could fix 
wages and hours and conditions as he pleased. 

Thus the new manufacturing society was made up of two Cleavage 

distinct and hostile classes. Under the gild and domestic ^^^^^^'^ 

° classes 

systems, apprentices and journeymen had expected to rise, 

sooner or later, to be "masters"; and at all times they lived 

on terms of constant intercourse with their masters, who 

worked side by side with them, shared their hardships, and 

had a sort of fatherly guardianship over them. Under the 

new system, a particularly enterprising and fortunate workman 

might now and then rise into the capitalist class (as a villein 

had now and then become a noble in old days) ; but on the 

whole, the line was drawn as distinctlj^ in Europe,^ between 

soft-handed capitalist and hard-handed workman in 1800, as 

between armored noble and stooped peasant in 1200. 

' In America, the relative' scarcity of labor, and the presence of free land, 
made this cleavage less complete for many years more. 



374 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



Moreover, the capitalist had no personal contact with his 
workmen. He employed not three or four, living in his own 
family, but hundreds or thousands. He never saw them, to 
know them, outside the factory, and he did not even know their 
names except on the payroll. There was no chance for real 
sympathy or understanding between him and his "hands." 

These changes, so far noted, are more or less permanent 
results of the capitalist system. We still have them in our 
society. But in 1800, in England, there was another result more 
immediately disastrous to the worker. He was compelled to 
change his whole manner of life for the worse. He must reach 
the factory within a few minutes after the first whistle blew, 
about sunrise, and stay there until sunset or dusk. So the 
capitalist built long blocks of ugly tenements near his factory, 
to rent ; and the workmen moved from their rural village homes, 
with garden spots and fresh air and varied industry', into these 
crowded city quarters. 

The factory system produced cities with marvelous rapidity. 
In 1750 England was still a rural country, with only four or 
five towns that had more than 5000 people. In 1801 cities 
had leaped into life everywhere. More than 100 towns counted 
5000 people. And in 1891, the number of such towns was 622. 
In 1700 the entire population of England and Wales (not in- 
cluding Scotland or Ireland) was somewhere between four and 
five millions. In 1801, when the first accurate census was taken, 
it was 8,893,000. Most of the increase had come in the last 
half of the century, and practically all of it had come in cities. 
During the next half-century, population doubled again, rising 
to 17,928,000 in 1851 ; and in the second half of the same century 
it very nearly doubled once more (32,526,000 in 1901). 

The factory system has helped to produce rapid growth of 
population and of cities in all civilized lands ; but nowhere else 
(except in the United States, where immigration has added 
millions) has the growth been so enormous as in England; and in 
no other country did rapid growth begin until England had faced 
and begun to solve the new problems. 



THE LONG DAY 375 

For the growth of cities, together with the factory system, And their 
did give rise to wholly new problems. For a time no one saw {i^g^'^° 
them clearly. The employers, most directly responsible, felt 
no responsibility, and were engaged in an exciting race for 
wealth. The new cities grew up without water supply, or drain- 
age, or garbage-collection. Science had not learned how to 
care for these needs properly, and law had not begun to wrestle 
with them. The masses of factory workers and their families 
dwelt in den-like garrets and cellars — a family stuffed in- 
decently into a squalid unwholesome room or two — bordering 
on pestilential alleys, in perpetual filth and disease and misery 
and vice. In 1837 one tenth of the people of the great city 
of Manchester lived in cellars. The employment of women 
in the factory destroyed the home for a large part of the nation.^ 

Carpenters and masons commonly worked from sunrise to Long hours 

sunset — or even from dawn to dark — just as farm laborers ^^^ ™°" 

"* notonous 

often do still. Such long hours for toil were terribly hard : labor 
but they could be endured when spent in fresh air, amid out- 
door scenes, in interesting and varied activity-. But this long 
labor day was now carried into the factory. There it was 
unendurable and ruinous, because of foul air, poor light, nerve- 
racking noise of machinery, the more monotonous character 
of factory labor — the workman spending his day in repeating 
over and over one simple set of motions, — and because there it 
crushed women and children. 

This was true even in America, when factories grew up here Illustrations 
after 1815. Many years ago. Professor Ely of Wisconsin ^°™ . . 
University wrote {Labor Movement in America, 49): — "The 1830 
length of actual labor [in 1832] in the Eagle Mill at Griswold 
[Connecticut] was fifteen hours and ten minutes. The regula- 
tions at Paterson, New Jersey, required women and children 
to be at work at half-past four in the morning. . . . Opera- 
tives were taxed by the manufacturers for the support of 
churches. . . . Women and children were urged on by the use 

' Women had done most of the spinning under the old domestic system ; 
but they had done it then at odd spells, as part of the household work. 



376 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



of the rawhide." Hope Factory (Rhode Island) rang its first 
bell ten minutes before the " break of day " (sunrise) ; the 
second bell, ten minutes later ; and in five minutes more the 
gates were locked upon tardy comers. Labor lasted in summer 
till eight at night ; and a committee of laborers claimed that by 
keeping the factory clock always slow, the employer lengthened 
this horrible labor-day by twenty or twenty-five minutes more. 





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jixea/KjMt }ae^a^ cmAAA^^^yu/XA^ At/»tJi -u-1irou3)«<.3a— .'^Tet. 



Facsimile of Time Card of Machine Shop in Providence, R. I., for 
1848. From Tarbell's "Golden Rule in Business" in the American 
Magazine for April, 1915. 



The only respite from work during the day was twenty-five 
minutes for breakfast and as much more for dinner — both meals 
eaten inside the walls from cold lunches brought by the workers. 
These factories were not exceptions : they were typical. 
A Convention of New England Mechanics at Boston in 1832 
declared that two fifths of all persons employed in American 
factories were children, whose day of toil averaged fourteen 
hours, and who had no chance whatever for schooling. 



AND THE CHILDREN 



377 



In England, conditions were at first worse than this. Parish Child 



slavery in 
England 



authorities had power to take children from pauper families 
and apprentice them to employers ; and dissolute parents some- 
times sold their children into service by written contracts. 
In the years just before 1800, gangs of helpless little ones 
from six and seven years upwards, secured in this way by 
greedy contractors, were auctioned off, thousands at a time, to 
great factories, where their life was a ghastly slavery. They 
received no wages. They were clothed in rags. They had 
too little food, and only of the coarsest sort. Often they ate 
standing at their work, while the machinery was in motion. 
They were driven to toil sometimes sixteen hours a day, in 
some places by inhuman tortures. They had no holiday except 
Sunday ; and their few hours for sleep were spent in dirty 
beds from which other relays of little workers had just been 
turned out. Schooling or play there was none; and the poor 
waifs grew up — girls as well as boys — if they lived at all, 
amid shocking and brutal immorality. When one batch of 
such labor had been used up, another was ready at little cost; 
and employers showed a disregard for the physical well-being of 
these "white slaves," such as no prudent negro-driver could ever 
afford toward his more costly black chattels. 

In 1800 a terrible epidemic among children in factory districts The begitt 
aroused public attention ; and Parliament "reduced" the hours '""gs of 
of labor for children-apprentices to twelve a day. The apprentice 
system, however, was abolished soon after, and the new law did 
not apply to the remaining child-operatives who were supposed 
to be looked after by their parents. In 1819 and in 1831 laws 
were passed to shorten hours for these children also, but they 
were not enforced ; and the old conditions continued with little 
gain until after political reforms which we are soon to study. 

Lord Ashley (Earl of Shaftesbury), whose championship helped finally 
to remedy these evils, spoke with great emotion forty years later (1873) 
of how he used to stand at the factory gates and watch the children come 
out, — "sad, dejected, cadaverous creatures," among whom "the crip- 
pled and distorted forms might be counted by hundreds." The poet 



378 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



Southey in 1833 declared of the factory system that the "slave trade is 
mercy compared with it." And the piteous story called forth a pas- 
sionate protest from the heart of England's woman poet against this 
hideous phase of English civilization (Mrs. Browning's Cry of the Chil- 
dren) : — 

'"For oh,' say the children, 'we are weary, 
And we can not run or leap. 
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely 
To drop down in them and sleep. . . .' 
"'How long,' they say, 'how long, O cruel nation, 
Will you stand to move the world on a child's heart — 
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation. 
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ! 
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper. 

And our purple shows your path. 
But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper 
Than the strong man in his wrath.' " 

Another unhappy change during this same period destroyed 
the yeomen of rural England. In America one reason why fac- 
tory workers were so at the mercy of employers was that in 
1800 they could no longer find "free land," as workers could do 
in colonial times. Good farming land near the Eastern cities 
was all taken up ; and the remote land in the West had not yet 
been opened by the government to settlement in small lots 
so that poor men could get hold of it. 

But in England things were worse. There it was not a 
matter of the absence of just land-laws, but the presence of 
unjust laws. The new profits in farming (p. 354) made land- 
lords eager for more land. They controlled Parliament; 
and that body passed law after law, after 1760, inclosing the 
"commons" for the benefit, not of the common good, but of their 
class. 

These new inclosures were outwardly more decent than those 
of the seventeenth century. Pains were taken to " compensate " 
every villager for the share he lost in the village commons. 
But, whatever the intention of the law, the compensation proved 
ridiculously inadequate. Usually it was in the form of a little 
cash, which the peasant spent without any lasting improvement 



ENGLAND A LANDLORD'S COUNTRY 379 

in his condition. A rhyme of the day expresses the feehng of 
the poor at this renewal of the ancient inclosure movement : — 

"The law locks up the man or woman 
Who steals the goose from off the common ; 
But leaves the greater villain loose 
Who steals the common from the goose." 

And Goldsmith's pathetic "Deserted Village" pictures the 
result and gives its stern warning : 

"111 fares the land, to hastening woes a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay." 

The peasant farmers, having lost their old pasture land by 
these inclosures, could no longer maintain themselves against 
the competition of the privileged landlord, who also alone had 
money to buy the new machinery coming into use. Small 
farmers were compelled to sell out; while the merchants and 
new manufacturing capitalists were eager to buy, both because 
of the new profits in agriculture and because social position 
and political power in England in that day rested on ownership 
of land. 

In 1700, in spite of the older inclosure movement of the A landlord 
sixteenth century, England had still some 400,000 peasant *^°""*n' 
farmers. These with their families made nearly half the total 
population. But by 1800, though population had doubled 
(p. 374), this class of independent small farmers had disappeared 
and rural England was merely a country of great landlords. 
The dispossessed yeomanry drifted to the new factory towns 
to swell the unhappy class there already described, and to 
make its condition worse by increasing the competition for 
work. Or they remained to till the landlord's land, living on 
his estate as "cottagers," subject to removal at his order. 

Since this change, until very recently, the classes connected 
with the land in England have been three, — landlords, tenant- 
farmers, and laborers. The first class comprised a few thousand 
gentry and nobles. Each such proprietor divided his estate 



380 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 

into "farms," of from a hundred to three hundred acres, and 
leased them out to men with a httle capital, who are known as 
"farmers." This second class worked the land directly, with 
the aid of the third class, who had no laiid of their own but 
who labored for day-wages. 

The landlords as a rule prided themselves upon keeping up 
their estates. They introduced costly machinery and improved 
methods of agriculture, more rapidly than small proprietors 
could, and they furnished some of the money necessary to put 
farms and buildings into good condition. Their own stately 
homes, too, encompassed by rare old parks, gave a beauty 
to rural England such as no other country knew. (During 
the World War, these glorious oaks have been cut to furnish 
lumber for England ; and much of this beauty has been lost.) 
The farmers, compared with the farm-laborers, were an aristo- 
cratic and prosperous class ; but, of course, they had always been 
largely influenced by their landlords. And they did not own 
their land. Peasants became free in England some centuries 
sooner than in France or Germany ; but in no other European 
country have the peasants so completely ceased to be owners 
of the soil as in modern England. In 1876 a parliamentary 
inquiry found only a quarter of a million (262,886) land- 
owners with more than an acre apiece. France, with about 
the same population, had more than twenty times as many 
landowners. 

Exercise. — Note the transitions in rural labor in England : (1) serf 
and villein labor to about 1350, and then a decay of that system until it 
disappears, about 1450; (2) inclosures (for sheep farming), driving a 
large part of the peasantry from the soil, 1450-1600 ; then, after a pros- 
perous period, (3) the new period of inclosures for large grain farming, 
1760-1830. (Recent attempts to restore the peasantry to the soil will be 
noted on pp. 476-477.) 

Note also the transitions in manufacturing : the gild system to about 
1600; the domestic system, 1600-1760; the factory system of to-day. 

The "Industrial Revolution" applies especially to the change in 
Manufacturing, due to the use of machinery and steam, in the period 
from 1760 to 1820. The Agricultural Revolution helped on the Indus- 
trial Revolution by furnishing workmen for the new factories. 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE REVOLUTION IN IDEAS ABOUT GOVERNMENT 

A group of scholars and writers soon put into form the new The " Let- 
ideas about carrying on industry and producing wealth. They f!°°® ' 
called their new science Political Economy. It was founded by govem- 
Adam Smith, about the beginning of the American Revolu- ™®°* 
tion. Its fundamental principle then was that government must 
keep hands off, unless called in as a policeman to keep order. 
"Laws" of "supply and demand," it taught, were "natural 
laws" among men (as gravitation was in the physical universe) 
and could not be meddled with, except to do harm. Supply 
and demand must be left absolute to determine prices, quality 
of goods, wages, and other conditions of employment. Only 
so could the "greatest happiness of the greatest number" 
be secured. 

This became known as the "Manchester doctrine," because it 
was so universal among manufacturers in that leading center 
of manufactures. It is also called by a French name, — Laissez 
faire ("let alone," or "let it go"). English merchants ac- 
cepted it no less readily than manufacturers, in their hatred of 
the old tariffs which hampered their trade ; and it soon became 
almost a religion to the toivn middle class. The prosperous 
capitalist class resented all thought of interference in their 
business by government. Such interference in past times, they 
easily proved, had been foolish and harmful, even when best 
intended, and usually it had been intended to benefit a specially 
privileged feiv, at the cost of the many. 

It is easy now to see that this new doctrine suited the strong, xhe 
but that it was totally unchristian in its disregard of the weak. Socialist 
Quite as much as any feudal system, it produced happiness 

381 



382 GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 

for a few and misery for the greatest number. The horrible 
conditions of the factory towns (p. 375) were its first fruits. 
Many tender-hearted men, Hke John Stuart Mill in Eng- 
land, were so imbued with the teaching that they continued 
long to proclaim it. But other men called this political 
economy a "dismal science," and soon many thinkers, in search 
of a cure for social ills, swung over to some form of what is 
now called Socialism. 

The first "Socialists" were very unscientific in their ideas, 
but they were moved by a deep love for suffering humanity. 
They believed that men by laws or by mutual arrangements 
could set up a society of common goods and brotherly love, — 
such as Sir Thomas More ha<l pictured in Utopia. Three names 
among these early Socialists deserve mention. 

Saint-Simon was a French noble who had aided America in 
the Revolution. Afterward, in a lifetime of study, he taught 
that government ought to manage all industry and secure to 
each worker a reward suitable to his service. He called his 
great book The New Chrisiianiiy. 

Fourier also was a Frenchman. He thought government 
unable to manage industry on such a scale as Saint-Simon ad- 
vocated. Instead, he urged that groups of workmen (and their 
families) should organize in little "phalanxes" of two thou- 
sand members each, — each phalanx to own its own capital 
and to divide products in nearly equal parts between the capi- 
ial, labor, and management. Horace Greeley, in America, was 
deeply interested in this plan ; and a number of New Eng- 
landers (Emerson and Hawthorne among them) tried such an 
experiment at Brook Farm in 1841. 

Robert Owen (p. 370) was a wealthy English manufacturer. 
His ideas for reform were much like Fourier's ; and he used 
his wealth to establish a number of such cooperative colonies 
in England and in America — as at New Harmony, Indiana. 
His colonies all failed finally ; but meantime he had given an 
impulse to cooperative societies for buying and selling goods, 
which ever since have accomplished great good ; and his influ- 



KARL MARX 383 

ence did much to spread faith in human brotherhood and to 
arouse the men who were to lead in social reforms in the next 
generation. 

Modern Socialists look back on all these early attempts as Modem 
well-meant efforts of dreamers, and trace their present doctrine °"^ ^™ 
to Karl Marx. Marx was born in 1818 in Germany. He 
a1,tended the University of Berlin, and was intended by his 
family for a University professor; but his radical ideas kept 
him from obtaining such a position. He began to publish 
his works on Socialism about 1847. Germany and then France 
drove him away, as a dangerous disturber of order ; and he 
spent the last forty years of his life (died 1883) in England, 
where, perhaps even more than in America, men of all creeds 
and opinions have found full freedom of speech. 

Marx threw aside the idea that benevolent persons could 
introduce a new era of cooperation by agreement. He be- 
lieved, however, that a new cooperative organization of society 
was going to succeed the present individualistic organization, 
as inevitably as that had followed the gild and slave organiza- 
tion, — not by humanitarian legislation, but through tendencies 
in human development that could not be controlled. x\ll 
history, he said, had been the story of class struggles. Ancient 
society was a contest between master and slave ; medieval 
society, between lord and serf ; present society, between capital- 
ist and workers. The workers, he was sure, will win, when 
they learn to unite, by transferring ownership of all machinery 
(all "means of production") to the nation as a whole, instead 
of leaving it and its profits in the hands of a few. He fore- 
told the recent concentration of wealth and industry in great 
combines, and said that such combination would be a step 
toward the cooperative state, since it would make it easier for 
the masses to seize the "means of production." 

In the name of "democracy and human welfare," Marx 
called to the working class of all lands to unite. "You have 
nothing to lose but your chains," he said. "Unite, and make 
the world your own," so as to inaugurate a golden future, 



384 THE WEAKNESS OF SOCIALISM 

" when all shall work, but none have to work too long or too 
hard. Then no one will grow rich at the expense of others, 
but each may receive honorable reward for any service that he 
renders society. Then degrading poverty and insolent wealth 
will both vanish ; and emancipated humankind will move for- 
ward grandly to unforeseen conquests over nature, and live as 
one vast family, in brotherly love." , 

Labor, the Socialist teaches, is the source of all wealth, — 
food, clothing, houses, machinery, books, pictures, railroads. 
Labor, he insists, produced the capital which now controls 
further production and so controls labor. He would have 
labor instead own all capital — that is, all wealth employed 
in producing more wealth. This does not mean that the 
Socialists wish to divide property, or to keep individuals after- 
ward from owning houses, libraries, carriages, jewels, clothing, 
of their own. They do not wish to abolish private ownership 
of those things which we use for ourselves, but only of those 
things which we use to produce more wealth. 

Nor do Socialists usually wish to pay all men alike for their 
work. They would have the nation own the property now 
owned mainly by great trusts and corporations, and then pay 
salaries and wages, as corporations now do — except that as the 
nation would not try to keep most of the profits, there would 
be more for wages. And as all would work, no one would have 
to work so long. 

Students who pay any attention to Socialism admit that its 
ideals are noble and attractive, and that the evils in present 
society are real and cruel. But the great majority do not 
believe that the Socialist program would work as its advocates 
teach ; and they hope to lessen the ills of society without sur- 
rendering private enterprise and industrial initiative to any 
such degree as the Socialists think necessary. 

For Further Reading. — Kirkup, History of Socialism, 1-167 ; 
or Spargo, Socialism, 1-181. (John Spargo is an American Socialist 
whom the organization "read out of the party" in 1917, because he 
supported the war against Germany.) 



PART VII 

OONTINENTAL EUROPE, 1848-1871 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 
I. IN FRANCE 
In France the divine-right Bourbon monarchy, we have seen, The 



middle- 
class 



gave way in 1830 to a constitutional Orleans monarchy. Louis 
Philippe (p. 350) Hked to be called "the Citizen King." He monarchy 
walked the streets in the dress of a prosperous shopkeeper, a 
green cotton umbrella under his arm, chatting cordially with 
passers-by, and he sent his children to the public schools. 
This was perfectly sincere conduct. He had little understanding, 
however, of the needs of France, or of the feelings of the masses 
below the shop-keeping class. For eighteen years (1830-1848) 
the favor of the middle class upheld his throne. Only the rich- 
est citizens had any share in political power (p. 350) ; but the 
whole middle class held military power, since it was organized 
in the armed and trained National Guards — to which no work- 
ingmen were admitted. 

In the legislature there were two main parties. Thiers 
(p. 348) led the more liberal one, which wished the monarchy 
to be a figurehead, as in England; Guizot (p. 348), the con- 
servative leader, wanted to leave the king the real executive, 
and to resist all further liberalizing of the government. Both 
Guizot and Thiers were famous historians. 

From 1840 to 1848, Guizot was in control as the chief minister. Guizot's 
France was undergoing rapid industrial growth, and needed P°^<^y °^ 
tranquillity and reforms. Guizot gave it tranquillity. His 1840-1848 

385 



386 



THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 



ministry was the most stable that France had known since the 
days of Napoleon. But, in his desire for tranquillity, he ig- 
nored the other great need, and opposed all reform. Proposals 
to reduce the enormous salt tax, to extend education, to* re- 
form the outgrown postal system, to improve the prisons, to 
care for youthful criminals, were alike suppressed. He kept 
France not so much tranquil as stagnant. 

Thus, after a time, the bright, brainy public men were nearly 
all driven into opposition ; and even the interests of the middle 
class suffered. In 1842 Lamartine, another brilliant historian- 
statesman, attacked Guizot with a bitter speech in the legisla- 
ture, declaring him so "inert" and "immovable," that "a post 
would answer as well all purposes of government." 

But Guizot could not be overthrown by lawful means. The 
franchise was too . narrow ; and he had organized the vast 
patronage of the government for public corruption too skill- 
fully. In America the constitution forbids the President to 
appoint Congressmen to paid offices, such as postmasters or 
customhouse collectors. But in France it was the regular 
practice to make members of the legislature "placemen" of 
this sort, as in England a century earlier (p. 214). This evil 
was the greater, since in France the government appointed not 
only national officials as with us, but also all local officers, like 
our county and State officials and city mayors and chiefs of 
police. 

Less than 200,000 men could vote (p. 350), and the govern- 
ment had 300,000 offices to buy voters with. Then when an 
election was over, Guizot strengthened his majority in the legisla- 
ture by appointing members to profitable offices, or by giving 
them lucrative business contracts from the government. At 
one time, half the legislature held considerable revenues at 
Guizot's will, and gave their votes at his nod. Personally, 
Guizot was incorruptible and rather austere ; but he ruled by 
organizing corruption. 

In the matter of political reform Thiers' party asked only 
(1) to forbid the appointment of members of the legislature 



IN FRANCE 387 

to salaried offices, and (2) to widen the franchise so that one man 
out of furnty could vote. Guizot smothered both proposals. 
France already had too many voters, he declared ; ' not more 
than 100,000 men in the country were capable of voting with 
good judgment.' 

Finally the Liberals began to appeal to that vast part of the The Liberals 
nation that had no vote. They planned a series of mass meet- to^pubUc''^* 
ings and public demonstrations, to bring public opinion to bear opinion 
on the legislature. According to American or English ideas, 
the proceeding was perfectly proper. But the French govern- 
ment forbade it — and brought on a revolution. 

This "Revolution of 1S48" teas the work of the class of factory 
^vorli'crs that had l)een growing up, almost unnoticed by political 
leaders of either party. Until 1825, when the Industrial Revo- 
lution was fairly complete in England, it had not begun in 
France. Cloth manufactures there were still carried on under 
the "Domestic system." But in the next ten years, 5000 power- 
looms were installed in factories ; and in ten years more, the 
number had grown to 30,000. In 1815 there was only one 
steam engine in the country, aside from a dozen or so used to 
pump water ; but in 1830 there were 625, and in 1850 there 
were more than 5000. The first French railway of importance 
was opened in 1843. 

Late as all this was, the Industrial Revolution came in The new 
France sooner than in any other country of the continent, jg*-""^ 
And it came soon enough so that, by 1848, a large factory- among the 
population had grown up in cities like Bordeaux, Lyons, Tou- paris™*° ° 
louse, and Paris. Moreover, more than the working class 
then in any other land, the alert, intellectually nimble French 
workingmen of the towns were influenced by the new teachings 
of Socialism. Their chief spokesman was Louis Blanc, an 
ardent young editor, who preached especially "the right to 
work." Every man, he urged, had a right to employment. 
To insure that right, he wished the nation to establish work- 
shops in different trades and give employment in them to all 
who wished it and who could not get it elsewhere. In the 



388 



THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 



The 

" February 

Days " 



The last 
of the 
Capetians 



The 

Provisional 
Government 
of 1848 



end, according to his plan, the workers would manage the 
workshops. 

Blanc was an unselfish, high-minded man, moved by deep 
pity for the suffering masses ; and his proposals were urged with 
moderation of word and style. But among his followers there 
were a few crack-brained enthusiasts, some criminally selfish 
adventurers, and many ignorant men easily incited to violence. 
Large numbers of the workingmen of Paris, in particular, had 
adopted phrases, not only about the "right to work," but also 
about "the crime of private property," as a sort of religious 
creed. This class was first revealed as a political power in 
the revolution that followed. 

In 1848 the Liberals appointed a monster political demon- 
stration in Paris for February 22 — choosing that day in 
honor of the American celebration. At the last moment the 
government forbade the meeting. The leaders obeyed and 
stayed away ; but the streets were filled all day with angry, 
disappointed crowds, shouting "Down with GuizotI" The 
National Guards, when called out to disperse the mob, them- 
selves took up the cry. The next day Guizot resigned. 

Peace seemed restored ; but that night a collision occurred 
between some troops and the mob ; and the Socialists and 
Radicals seized the chance to rouse the masses against the 
monarchy. The bodies of a few slain men were paraded 
through the poorer quarters of the city in carts, while fervid 
orators called the people to rise against a monarchy that mas- 
sacred French citizens. By the morning of the 24th, the streets 
bristled with barricades and the mob was marching on the 
Tuileries. Louis Philippe fled to England, disguised as a " Mr. 
Smith." His government had lost the support of the middle 
classes, and it collapsed. "The February Days" saw the end 
of the Capetian monarchy in France. 

The Chamber of Deputies was about to proclaim the infant 
grandson of Louis Philippe as king, when the room was invaded 
by a howling mob, flourishing muskets and butcher-knives 
and calling for a republic. In the midst of this tumult the 



LAMARTINE 389 

few deputies who kept their seats hastily appointed a "Pro- 
visional Government." 

This body was at once escorted by the mob to the Hotel de 
Ville (a sort of town hall), where it found another provisional 
government already set up by the Radicals and Socialists. 
By a compromise, some of this latter body were incorporated 
in the first. The Provisional Government was now made up 
of three elements : Lamartine, the poet-historian, represented 
the Moderate Republicans ; Ledru-RoUin was the representa- 
tive of the Radical Republicans ("the Reds"), who wished to 
return to the "Terror" of 1793; and Louis Blayic represented 
the Socialists. On the whole, Lamartine proved to be the 
guiding force. 

The difficulties before the government were tremendous. 
For sixty hours it was in the presence of kn infuriated and 
drunken mob. A crowd of 100,000 armed men was packed 
into the streets about the Hotel de Ville, and delegations from 
it repeatedly forced their way into the building to make wild 
demands upon the "government." That government must at 
once disperse this seething multitude, avert plunder and mas- 
sacre, clear away barricades, bury the dead and care for the 
wounded, and supply food for the great city wherein all ordi- 
nary business had ceased. All this, too, had to be accomplished 
without any police assistance. 

Time after time, during the sixty hours' session, was Lamar- Lamartine 
tine called from the room to check invasions by new bands of 
revolutionists. Said the spokesman of one of the bands : "We 
demand the extermination of property and of capitalists, the 
instant establishment of community of goods, the proscription 
of the rich, the merchants, those of every condition above that 
of wage-earners, . . . and finally the acceptance of the red 
flag, to signify to society its defeat, to the people its victory, 
to all foreign governments invasion." 

Lamartine grew faint with exhaustion and want of food. 
His face was scratched by a bayonet thrust. But his fine 
courage and wit and persuasive eloquence won victory over 



390 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OP 1848 



The new 
Assembly 



every danger. To help appease the mob, however, the Govern- 
ment hastily adopted a number of radical decrees, writing them 
hurriedly upon scraps of paper and throwing them from a window 
to the crowd. One declared France a Republic. Another 
abolished the House of Peers. Still others established manhood 
suffrage, shortened the 11-hour working day to 10 hours, and 
affirmed the duty of the state to give every man a chance to work} 

A few days later, the decree recognizing the "right to work" 
was given more specific meaning by the establishment of "na- 
tional workshops" (on paper) for the unemployed. In the 
business panic that ollowed the Revolution, great numbers of 
men had been thrown out of work. The government now organ- 
ized these men in Paris, as they applied, into a 'workshop 
army," in brigades, companies, and squads, — paying full wages 
to all it could employ and a three-fourths wage to those obliged 
to remain idle. 

Over one hundred thousand men, many of them from other 
cities, were soon enrolled in this way; but, except for a little 
work on the streets, the government had no employment ready 
for such a number. The majority of the government, too, sue 
ceeded in placing the management in the hands of a personal 
enemy of Blanc's, and it seems to have been their intention 
that the experiment should fail, so as to discredit Blanc with 
the populace. The experiment was not in any sense a fair trial 
of the socialistic idea. It was a police provision and a tem- 
porary poor-law. It preserved order and distributed alms, but 
it also gave a formidable organization to a terrible force with 
which the new Republic would soon have to reckon. 

A new "Constituent Assembly," elected by manhood suffrage, 
met May 4. The Revolution, like that of 1830, had been 
confined to Paris. The rest of France had not cared to inter- 
fere in behalf of Louis Philippe, but it felt no enthusiasm for 
a republic and it abhorred the "Reds" and the Socialists. 
This, too, was the temper of the Assembly. It accepted the 
revolution, but it was bent upon putting down the Radicals. 

' A number of these decrees are given in Anderson's Documents. 



LOUIS NAPOLEON, PRESIDENT 391 

As soon as this became evident, the mob rose once more 
(May 15), and burst into the legislative hail, holding possession 
for three turbulent hours. At last, however, some middle- 
class battalions of the National Guard arrived, under Lamar- 
tine, to save the Assembly. 

The rescued Assembly promptly followed up its victory. The Paris 
After making military preparations, it suddenly abolished the ^"'^u™^'^ 
workshop army — without any provision for the absorption of 
the men into other employments. A conservative French states- 
man has styled this " a brutal, unjust, blundering end to a 
foolish experiment." The men of the workshop army rose. 
They comprised the great body of the workingmen of Paris, 
and they were aided by their semi-military organization. 
The conflict raged for four days, — the most terrible struggle 
that even turbulent Paris had ever witnessed. Twenty thou- 
sand men perished ; but in the outcome, the superior discipline 
and equipment of the Assembly's troops crushed the vSocialists 
for another generation. Then eleven thousand prisoners were 
slaughtered in cold blood, or transported for life. This is 
another of those cruel and senseless "White Terrors" which 
arouse very little indignation in society, although society is 
amazed that the class punished in such fashion should develop 
bitter class hatreds. 

The Assembly now turned to its work of making a consti- The Con- 
tution. Thedocument^ was made public in November. It was ftit^^»on of 
not submitted to a popular vote. It provided for a legislature Second 
of one house, and for a four-year president, both to be chosen ®P" '*^ 
by manhood suffrage. A month later (December 10) Louis 
Napoleon, a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, was elected the 
first president of this "Second French Republic" by an over- 
whelming majority. 

Napoleon's political capital was his name. A group of bril- " The 
liant writers, of whom, strangely enough, Thiers was chief, Legend'"^*^ 
had created a "Napoleonic legend," representing the rule of 
the First Napoleon as a period of glory and prosperity for 
1 The document is given in Anderson's Constitutions and Documents. 



392 



THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS 



France, broken only by wars forced upon Napoleon by the 
jealousy of other rulers. These ideas had become a blind 
faith for great masses in France. Louis Napoleon had long 
believed that he was destined to revive the rule of his family. 
Twice in the early years of Louis Philippe's reign he had tried 
to stir up a Napoleonic revolution, only to become a laughing- 
stock to Europe. But now to the peasantry and the middle 
class, alarmed by the specter of Socialism, Napoleon's name 
seemed the symbol of order and peace. He received over five 
and a half million votes, to about one and a half million for the 
next highest candidate. 

For Further Reading. — Hazen (see page 339 of this volume), 
114-194. (Andrews' Modern Europe and Seignobos' Europe since 1814 
remain good.) On early French Socialists, Robinson and Beard's 
Readings, II. 78-80. On the national workshops of 1848, ib., 80-84. 



The 

" March 
Days " 
in Central 
Europe 



II. CENTRAL EUROPE IN '48 

The year 1848 was "the year of revolutions." In central 
Europe Metternich's system had lasted until that time. For 
long, however, the forces of revolution had been gathering 
strength for a general upheaval. Metternich, now an old man, 
saw this. In January he wrote to a friend, " The world is very 
sick. The one thing certain is that tremendous changes are 
coming." A month later, the February rising in Paris gave the 
signal for March risings in other lands. Metternich fled from 
Vienna in a laundry cart ; and all over Europe thrones tottered 
— except in stable free England on the west, and in stable 
despotic Russia and Turkey on the east. 

Within a few days, in Holland, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden, 
to save their crowns, the kings granted new constitutions and 
many liberties. In every one of the German states, large or 
small, the rulers did the like. So, too, in Italy in the leading 
states, — Sardinia, Tuscany, Rome, and Naples. In all these 
countries the administration passed for a time to the hands 
of liberal ministries pledged to reform. Everywhere, too, the 
remains of feudal privilege were finally abolished. 



Revolution 
in the 



realms 



IN THE HAPSBURG REALMS 393 

Outside France the chief interest centers (1) in the Austrian 
Empire, the storm-center ; (2) in Germany, which Austria had 
so long dominated ; and (3) in Italy, much of which was sub- 
ject to Austria. 

A. The Revolution in the Austrian Empire 

March 13, two weeks after the French rising, the students of The; 
the University of Vienna and the populace of the city rose in 
street riots, to the cry, "Down with Metternich." After his Austrian 
escape, the crowds about the Emperor's palace began to call 
for a constitution, with freedom of speech and with an elected 
legislature. The Emperor promised these and other reforms, 
and appointed a liberal ministry to put them in operation. 

But the Austrian Empire was a vast conglomerate. It in- 
cluded many peoples and several distinct states. Two subject 
states in particular now demanded self-government. These 
were Bohemia and Hungary. The Austrians proper were Ger- 
mans. They made the bulk of the inhabitants in the old duchy 
of Austria, and they were the ruling class elsewhere in the Em- 
pire, comprising, too, a portion of the population everywhere. 
Still they made up less than one fourth of all the inhabitants. 
In Bohemia the bulk of the inhabitants were the native Slavs 
(Czechs) ; and in the Hungarian half of the Empire, the Hun- 
garians (p. 87) were the dominant people. Hungary itself, 
however, was also a conglomerate state. In many of its border 
districts (map opposite), the Slav peoples (Croats, Serbs, Sla- 
vonians) made the larger part of the population. 

In Bohemia and Hungary the March risings were not merely 
for liberalism, as in German Austria. They were also for 
Bohemian and Hungarian home rule. These peoples, however, 
did not yet demand complete independence. So the Emperor 
skillfully conciliated both states by granting constitutional 
governments with a large measure of home-rule and the official 
use of their own languages (instead of German). Then he 
used the time so gained to crush similar national movements 
in Italy (below). 



^ 394 



THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS 



In all this, the government had yielded only to a momentary 
necessity. The Emperor had no intention of keeping his 
solemn promises, but was bent on restoring old conditions. 
In this despotic purpose, he had an ally in race jealousy. The 
German Liberals dreaded Slav rule, especially in Bohemia, 
where many Germans lived. Soon, disturbances there be- 
tween the two races gave the Emperor excuse to interfere. 
The army was now ready, — as it was not in March, — and, 
in July, the Emperor replaced the constitution he had just 
given to Bohemia by military rule. Alarmed at this sign of 
reaction, the Radicals rose again in Vienna, and got posses- 
sion of the city (October) ; but the triumphant army, recalled 
now from Bohemia, captured the capital after a savage bombard- 
ment. 

The old Emperor (Ferdinand) was embarrassed somewhat by 
his recent solemn promises to the Liberals and to the subject 
peoples. But now he abdicated in favor of his nephew, the 
shrewd Francis Joseph. This new ruler pleaded that he had 
never consented to any weakening of his absolute powers, and 
at once restored absolutism both in Bohemia and in the central 
government of the Empire. (This is the ruler who continued 
to guide Austria almost to her final overthrow in the World 
War.) 

Hungary remained to be dealt with. Here, too, race jealousies 
played into the hands of despotism. The Slavs wanted inde- 
pendence from the Hungarians ; and if they had to be subject 
at all, they preferred German rule from distant Vienna rather 
than Hungarian rule from Budapest. The Hungarians had 
just crushed a rising of the Croats for independence. When 
the new Emperor came to the throne, the Croats rose again, 
this time with imperial aid. Accordingly, the Hungarians 
refused to acknowledge Francis Joseph as emperor. Instead 
they declared Hungary a republic, chose the hero Kossuth 
president, and waged a gallant war for full independence. For 
a time they seemed successful ; but the Tsar, in accordance 
with the compact between the monarchs of the Holy Alliance, 



IN GERMANY 395 

sent a Russian army of 150,000 men to aid Austria, and 
Hungary was crushed (April-August, 1849). 

It remained only for Austria to reestablish her authority in 
Germany, which had been left for a time to Prussia and the 
German Liberals {B, below). 

B. In Germany 

Even Prussia in '48 had its scenes of l)lood and slaughter. The 

In Berlin, from March 13 to March 18, excited middle-class ^"'^.^ . 

Revolution 

crowds thronged the streets. They made no attempt at serious in Prussia 
violence against the government, however, until, in some 
way, never clearly understood, a sharp conflict took place 
with the troops on the 18th. The army inflicted terrible 
slaughter on the imorganized citizens ; but Frederick William 
IV was neither resolute enough nor cold-hearted enough to 
follow up his victory. To pacify the people, he sent into 
temporary exile his brother William, who had commanded the 
troops ; and he took part in a procession in honor of the slain, 
wearing the red, gold, and black colors of the German patriots. 
Then he called a Prussian parliament to draw up a constitu- 
tion. He tried also to put himself at the head of the move- 
ment for German national union. "From this time," he 
declared, "Prussian interests will be absorbed in those of 
Germany." 

Meantime, a "people's movement" for German unity had The 
got under way. Early in March, prominent German Liberals ^'^^'^^"f* 
gathered at Heidelberg and called a German National Assembly, 
to be chosen by manhood suffrage, — arranging the number 
of representatives from each German state. May 18, 1848, 
the National Assembly met at Frankfort. This was the first 
representative assembly of the German people. 

The Assembly had two fatal weaknesses. 

1. It did not really represent the whole German people, much 
as it wished to do so, but only a sviall middle cla^s of "intellec- 
tuals." The nobility — with a few rare exceptions— ^ held wholly 
aloof and hostile. The peasantry were too slavish to have any 



396 THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS 

sympathy with the movement. Bismarck, a reactionary young 
Prussian noble, tells us, later, that it would have been easy to 
rally the Prussian peasantry for a march upon Berlin to rescue 
the king from the revolutionary influences there. And even 
the merchants of the middle class cared for union only or chiefly 
in order to get rid of vexatious tariffs between the various 
states — and cared for freedom not at all. 

2. The Assembly was led by talkers and scholars, not by states- 
men or men of action. The members could not understand the 
necessity of compromise or of prompt action. They spent 
precious months in wordy orations and in laying down compre- 
hensive theories of government. 

During May and June, the Assembly did organize an ineffec- 
tive "provisional government"; but meanwhile Austria had 
crushed Bohemia (p. 394). The next four months at Frankfort 
went to debating a bill of rights, while all chance of securing 
any rights was being lost. During this time, Austria restored 
"order" finally in Italy (p. 400) and recovered Vienna from the 
Radicals. Over all Germany, too, the commercial class was 
becoming bitterly hostile to the revolution because of the long- 
continued business panic ; and the new Prussian parliament at 
Berlin, which was to have drawn up a liberal constitution, had 
provoked Frederick William into dissolving it. To be sure, 
the king himself then gave a constitution to Prussia ; but it 
was of a very conservative character. In other German states, 
too, the rulers were overthrowing liberal ministries which had 
been set up after the March Days. 
Austria These were the conditions in October when the Frankfort 

interferes Assembly at last took up the making of a constitution. Two 
questions then divided the Assembly : (1) should the new gov- 
ernment be monarchic or republican ; and (2) should the new 
nation include despotic Austria with her vast non-German pop- 
ulation. The republicans had no chance whatever to succeed, 
but they helped to delay action on the more practical question. 
The wrangling went on through the winter of 1849, until Austria 
finally got her hands free elsewhere and announced that she 



THE FRANKFORT ASSEMBLY 397 

would permit no German union into which she did not enter 
with all her provinces. 

Then the Radicals gave up the impossible republic, and the The people's 
Assembly took the step it should have taken months before. J°°^®™®°* 
It decided for a consolidated union without Austria under the 
name of the German Empire ; and it offered the imperial crown 
to Frederick William of Prussia. But it was six months too 
late. The first enthusiasm among even the middle class was 
gone. And Frederick William was timid : he was influenced 
by a sense of "honor among kings," so that he hesitated to take 
advantage of the Austrian Emperor's embarrassments with 
revolted subjects ; and he felt a growing aversion to the move- 
ment which, a few months before, he had called "the glorious 
German revolution." After some hesitation, he declined the 
crown "bespattered with the blood and mire of revolution." 
In despair the Radicals resorted to arms to set up a republic. 
They were promptly crushed. The National Assembly van- 
ished in the spring of 1849, and many German Liberals, like 
Carl Schurz, fled, for their lives, to America. The "people's" 
attempt to make a German nation had failed — because the 
German "people" as a whole were not fit for union or freedom. _,. 

Next the -princes tried — with no better success. In the sum- attempt of 

mer of 1849, despite the protests of Austria and Bavaria, ^I^^^^^ ^°^ 

'■ _ vierman 

twenty-eight rulers of North German states organized a league unity 
under the lead of the Prussian king. 

Several of the princes, however, were half-hearted, joining The " Hu- 
only through fear of popular risings. Austria, with Hungary ^^'^fj°f, °* 
now at her feet, organized the South German states into a 
counter-league, and demanded the restoration of the old Con- 
federation. The Austrian government announced bluntly 
that it meant to humiliate Prussia. Austrian and Prussian 
troops met on the borders of Bavaria. Shots were exchanged ; 
but the Prussian army was not ready. The Russian Tsar 
showed himself ready to aid Austria in Germany as he had done 
in Hungary. Finally Frederick William made ignominious 
submission to the Austrian demands in a conference at Olmiitz 



398 



THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS 



(November, 1850) ; and Austria restored the old Germanic Con- 
federation of 1815. 



Italy 
betrayed 
both by 
Napoleon 
and the 
Allies 



Italy and 
the 

Congress 
of Vienna 



C. The Revolution of '48 in Italy 

Italy had been in fragments since the days of the Roman 
Empire. Her people, however, had not forgotten that once 
she had ruled the world. Through the Middle Ages, enthusiastic 
Italians had dreamed of national unity', and some of the great 
popes had hoped for a union of the peninsula under papal 
leadership. About 1800, the proclamations of Bonaparte in 
his Italian campaigns, promising independence, again awoke 
hope in Italian hearts ; and, under his control, some advance 
was made toward union (pp. 306, 319). 

Then, when the European coalition was struggling with 
Napoleon, in 1813 and 1814, the generals of the Allies appealed 
to the Italian populations with glowing promises. An English 
force landed at Genoa, with its flag inscribed "Italian Liberty 
and Independence"; and Austrian proclamations announced: 
"We come to you as liberators. Long have you groaned be- 
neath oppression. You shall be an independent nation." 

The Congress of Vienna ignored these promises and hopes. 
Even the Napoleonic improvements were undone, and medieval 
conditions were restored. Lombardy and Venetia became 
Austrian provinces (p. 329), and most of the rest of the peninsula 
was handed ovet to Austrian influence. Bourbon rule was re- 
stored in the south over the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 
where the king pledged himself to allow no institutions niore 
liberal than those permitted by Austria in her districts. Dukes, 
dependent upon Austria, were set up in Tuscany, Modena, and 
Parma. Between these duchies and Naples lay the restored 
Papal States, with the government in close sympathy with 
Austria. The northwest was given back to the Kingdom of 
Sardinia ^ under a native line of monarchs, to whom the people 

'During the Napoleonic wars, an English fleet kept Sardinia safe from 
French conquest when the other dominions of her rulers were taken from 
them. 



IN ITALY 399 

were loj'ally attached. This was the one Italian state (besides 
the pope's territories) where the ruler was not strictly dependent 
on Austrian protection. But even in Sardinia until 1848 the 
government was a military despotism. " Italy," said Metternich 
complacently, "is a mere geographical expression." 

This remained true from 1815 to 1848. The story of the 
Italian revolutions of 1820 and the Holy Alliance has been told. 
In 1830, after the July Revolution in Paris, new revolutions 
broke out in the Papal States and the small duchies, but these 
movements also were soon put down by Austria. 

The ten years from 1830 to 1840, however, did see the organiza- " Young 
tion of "Young Italy" by Mazzini. Mazzini was a lawyer of ^**ly " 
Genoa and a revolutionary enthusiast who was to play, in free- 
ing Italy, a part somewhat like that of Garrison and Phillips in 
preparing for our American Civil War. His mission was to create 
a great moral enthusiasm. His words and writings worked 
wonderfully upon the younger Italians of the educated classes, 
and his Society of Young Italy replaced the older Carbonari 
(p. 341). Young Italy had for its program a united Italian 
Republic. The dea of a free and united Italy grew steadily, 
until even some of the rulers became imbued with it. Especially 
did the Liberals hope much from Pius IX, a liberal Italian, who 
was chosen pope in 1846, in opposition to the wishes of Austria. 

Thus when the revolutions of 1848 broke out, Italy was 
ready to strike for national union and independence. In 1820- 
1821, the extremities of the peninsula had been shaken; in 
1830, the middle states ; in 1848, there was no foot of Italian 
soil not convulsed, and this time the revolutionists sought union 
as ardently as freedom. 

On the news of Metternich 's flight, Milan and Venice drove Italian 
out their Austrian garrisons. Then Charles Albert, king of jn^^g" 
Sardinia, gave his people a constitution and put himself at the 
head of a movement to expel Austria from the peninsula. The 
pope and the rulers of Tuscany and Naples promised loyal 
aid. Venice and other small states in the north voted enthusi- 
astically for incorporation into Sardinia. 



400 



THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS 



Defeats at But the king of Naples was dishonest in his promises ; and 

and Novara ^ven the Hberal and patriotic pope was not ready to break 
fully with Austria. Except for a few thousand volunteer 
soldiers, Charles Albert got no help from Italy south of Lom- 
bardy ; and, July 15, 1848, he was defeated at Custozza. Then 
the movement passed into the hands of the Radicals. Venice 

and Florence each set up 
a republic ; and in Feb- 
ruary, 1849, the citizens 
of Rome, led by Mazzini, 
drove away the pope and 
proclaimed the "Roman 
Republic." 

These republican move- 
ments succeeded, for the 
hour, only because Aus- 
tria was busied in Bo- 
hemia and Hungary. But 
soon a strong Austrian 
army was sent to Italy. 
Charles Albert took the 
field once more, but was 
defeated decisively at 
Novara (March, 1849); 
and Venice was captured 
in August after gallant 
resistance. Louis Napoleon restored the pope to his Roman 
principality, and left a French garrison there for his protec- 
tion during the next twenty years, to 1870. 




Joseph Mazzini 



The failure of the Italians, however, was not shameful, like 
that of the Germans. They had come near to siiccess; and they 
failed, not because of their own faults, hut because of crushing 
foreign interference. The splendid attempt had at least revealed 
the fact that " United Italy," once a dream of scattered enthusiasts 
only, had grown into a passionate faith for the whole people. 



MAZZINI 401 

This well-grounded faith, not merely for a free Italy but for Mazzini's 

a free Europe, was finelv spoken to the world b\' Mazzini, with challenge to 

'^ "^ ^ ' ' victorious 

splendid courage, in the very hour of discouraging defeat, reaction 

Mazzini had barely escaped with his life ; but in 1849, from his 

refuge in England, while less fortunate associates were dying 

in Italy on scaffolds and under tortures in dungeons, he uttered 

to the exultant forces of reaction this clear-sounding challenge : 

" Our victory is certain ; I declare it with the profoundest 
conviction, here in exile, and precisely when monarchical 
reaction appears most insolently secure. What matters 
the triumph of an hour? What matters it that by con- 
centrating all your means of action, a\ailing yourselves of 
every artifice, turning to your account those prejudices and 
jealousies of race which yet for a while endure, and spread- 
ing distrust, egotism, and corruption, you have repulsed our 
forces and restored the former order of things? Cmi you 
restore men's faith in it, or do you think you can long main- 
tain it by brute force alone, now that all faith in it is ex- 
tinct ? . . . Threatened and undermined on every side, can 
you hold all Europe forever in a state of siege f " 

For Further Reading on 1848. — Hazen's Europe Since 1815, 
152-186. Andrews and Seignobos have good accounts also; and 
Phillips' European History, 1815-1899, is especially excellent for 1848. 



CHAPTER XXVII 



WESTERN EUROPE FROM 1848 TO 1871 

(From the Year of Revolutions through the Franco- Prussian War) 

Except to the few men of faith, hke Mazzini, the risings of '48 seemed 
to have been in vain. True, feudalism was at last gone forever, even 
from Austria, and the Holy Alliance was finally disrupted by the rivalry 
between Prussia and Austria. But in government, the restoration of 
despotism appeared complete. The Revolution had closed in Italy 
with the defeat of Novara (March, 1849), in the Austrian realms with 
the fall of the Hungarian Republic (July, 1849), and in Germany with 
the "humiliation of Olmiitz" (December, 1850). In France it was 
swiftly going, and was to disappear in 1851 with Napoleon's coup d'etat 
(below) . 

For the next generation of human life, interest on the continent 
centered in three lands, — France, Italy, Germany. And of these only 
Italy during that period was to make true and lasting progress. 



The 

shame of 
France : 
" Napoleon 
the Little " 



I. FRANCE : THE SECOND EMPIRE, 1852-1870 

In 1830 and in 1S4S, France had led liberal Europe ; but 
for the next twenty years, after she had crushed so bloodily the 
workingmen of Paris, her story is one of shame. Fearing the 
"class-hatred" which they themselves had done so much to 
provoke, the middle class threw themselves into the arms of a 
despot for security — while this despot was posing to the work- 
ing class as their champion against this same middle class. 

Louis Napoleon, President of the Republic (p. 391), was 
constantly at loggerheads with the Assembly. From the first, 
he plotted secretly to overthrow the republican constitution — 
to which he had repeatedly sworn fidelity — and to make him- 
self master of France. 

The Assembly played into his hand. In 1849 it passied a 
reactionary law which disfranchised a large part of the working- 

402 



THE COUP D'ETAT OF 1851 403 

men of the cities. After the law had been passed, Napoleon 
criticized it vehemently, so as to appear to the workingmen 
as their champion. At the same time, the discontent of the 
artisans made the middle class fear a revolution ; and that 
class turned to Napoleon as the sole hope for order. Thus the 
chief elements in the state dreaded the approaching close of 
Napoleon 's presidency. 

The constitution forbade a reelection ; and an attempt to The coup 
amend this clause was defeated by the Assembly. Thus that ^"" 
body had now seriously offended l:)oth the artisan class and the 
middle class ; and Napoleon could overthrow it with impunity. 

In semi-royal progresses through France, Napoleon had been 
preparing the nation for his blow. He found fault with the 
Assembly freely, and his speeches were filled with references to 
the "glory" of the former French Empire, and to the benefits 
conferred upon France by "my great uncle." All important 
offices in the army and in the government were put into the hands 
of his tools and his trusted friends; and on December 2, 1851, 
he carried out the most striking cow/> d'etat in all French history. 

During the preceding night, some eighty men whose oppo- 
sition was especially feared — journalists, generals, and leaders 
in the Assembly — were privately arrested and imprisoned ; 
and all the printing offices in the city were seized by Napo- 
leon's troops. In the morning the amazed people found the 
city posted with startling placards. These announced the dis- 
solution of the Assembly, proposed a new government with 
Napoleon at its head, and promised an appeal to the nation for 
ratification. 

The Assembly tried to meet but was dispersed by soldiers, 
and most of the members were imprisoned. During the next 
few days a few Radicals began to raise barricades here and 
there in the streets ; but these were carried by the soldiers with 
pitiless slaughter, and the conflict was made an excuse for a 
"reign of terror," in accordance with a policy of "f rightful- 
ness." Batches of prisoners, taken at the barricades, were shot 
down after surrender. The Radical districts of France were put 



404 



THE SECOND FRENCH EMPIRE 



Ratified 

by 

France 



" Elec- 
tions " 
under 
the Empire 



under martial law. And thousands of men were transported to 
penal settlements, virtually without trial. 

Under these conditions, a few days later, the country was 
invited to vote Yes or No upon a new constitution making 
Napoleon President for Ten Years with dictatorial power. 
France "ratified" this proposal by a vote of seven and a half 
million out of eight million. In November of the next year, 
a nearly unanimous vote made the daring adventurer Emperor of 
the French, under the title Napoleon III. (The Bonapartists 
counted the son of Napoleon I as Napoleon II, though he never 
reigned.) 

The unanimity in the vote was due partly to shameless inter- 
ference at the polls. The army was voted first, for an example ; 
and in many places the rural population was marched to the 
polls, under military authority. Such measures, however, were 
not necessary to secure a large majority. Except for a small 
body of Liberals and Socialists, France fell willingly into Na- 
poleon's arms. 

The "Second Empire" was modeled closely upon that of 
Napoleon I. During its early years, political life was suspended. 
The people, it is true, elected a Legislative Chamber (a greater 
popular power than existed under the First Empire) ; but the 
Emperor appointed a Senate and a Council of State ; while for 
some years the Chamber could consider no bill that had not been 
put before it by the Emperor and his Council. The legislature 
was not even a. free debating society ; its function was to register 
edicts. 

At the election of a "legislature," the government presented 
for every elective position an "official candidate," for whom the 
way was made easy. Opposing candidates could not hold 
public meetings, nor hire the distribution of circulars. They 
were seriously hampered even in the use of the mails, and their 
placards were torn down by the police, or industriously covered 
by the official bill-poster for the government candidate. The 
ballot boxes, too, were supervised by the police, and, no 
doubt, were sometimes "stuffed." Moreover Napoleon sub- 



"GLORY," "PROSPERITY," SLAVERY 



405 



sidized a large number of newspapers, and suppressed all 
that were unfavorable to him. 

Personal liberty, also, was wholly at the mercy of the govern- 
ment. The servants of prominent men were likely to be the 
paid spies of the police. Under the " Law of Public Security " 
(1858), Napoleon could legally send "suspects," without trial, 
to linger through a slow death in tropical penal colonies (as 
he had been doing illegally be- 
fore). Many thousands are 
said to have perished in this 
way. Upon the passage of 
this law, an order was sent to 
each prefect to arrest a fixed 
number of men in his depart- 
ment, using his own choice 
in selecting them. The total 
arrests under this order ex- 
ceeded two thousand. The 
purpose was merely to intimi- 
date the nation — another 
use of a despot's policy of 
"frightfulness." 

Napoleon's methods had 
been those of a dastardly con- 
spirator, and his rule was a 
despotism. But he seems honestly to have deceived himself 
into the belief that he was "a democratic chief." His govern- 
ment, he insisted, rested upon manhood suffrage in elections 
and glebiscites. The Restoration (1815-1830), he said, was the 
government of the great landowners ; the Orleans Monarchy 
was the government of the middle class ; the Empire was the 
government of the people. 

In partial recompense for loss of liberty, too,^ he gave to 
France great material and economic progress. Industry was 
encouraged. Leading cities were rebuilt upon a more magnifi- 
cent scale; and Paris, with. its widened streets, shaded boule- 




No personal 
liberty 



"France is Tranquil" (a favorite 
phrase with Napoleon III). A car- 
toon from Harper's Magazine. 



Napoleon 
accepted by 
France 



Because of 
" pros- 
perity " 



406 THE SECOND FRENCH EMPIRE 

vards, and new, glorious public buildings, was made the most 
beautiful capital in the world. Asylums and hospitals were 
founded ; schools were encouraged, and school libraries were 
established. And a system of vast public works throughout the 
Empire afforded employment to the working classes. France 
secured her full share of the increase of wealth and comfort 
that came to the world so rapidly during those years. The 
shame is that France was bribed to accept the despicable 
despotism of Napoleon by this prosperity — and by the tinsel 
sham of "glory" in war. 

And In 1852 Napoleon had declared "The Empire is Peace"; 

military ^^^ j^^ found himself irresistibly impelled to war, in order to 

keep the iaxor of the army and of the populace b^^ reviving 
the glories of the First Empire. His foreign policy soon became 
aggressive ; and the first years of his reign (1854-1859) saw a 
series of victories that dazzled France. For forty years, — • 
ever since the fall of Napoleon I, — Europe had been free from 
great wars. Napoleon III reintroduced them. The two most 
important wars of this period were the Crimean (1854-1856) 
and the Italian (1859). 

The 1 . France had a trivial quarrel with Russia over the guardian- 

Crimean gj^jp q£ Christian pilgrims at Jerusalem. England was hos- 
tile to Russia, fearing lest that Power should force itself to the 
Mediterranean and endanger England's route to India; and, 
it is fair to add, English Liberals feared Russian autocracy (the 
main support then of the despotic Holy Alliance) much as 
Liberals in recent years have feared German autocracy. Russia 
and Turkey were at war in the Black Sea. Through Napoleon's 
intrigues, France and England joined' Turkey. . The struggle 
was waged mainly in the Crimea, and took its name from that 
peninsula. Russia was defeated, but no permanent results of 
importance were achieved. At the close of the contest, how- 
ever. Napoleon gathered representatives of all the leading Powers 
at the Congress of Paris, to make peace, and France seemed 
again to have become the arbiter in European politics. 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S WARS 407 

2. In 1859 Napoleon joined the Kingdom of Sardinia ina war The Italian 
against Austria to free Italy. He won striking victories at ^^^ 
Magenta and Solferino, near the scene of the early triumphs 
of the First Napoleon over the same foe ; and then he made 
unexpected peace, to the dismay and wrath of the half-freed 
Italians. For his pay, Napoleon forced Italy to cede him the 
provinces of Nice and Savoy (pp. 305, 328). 

But the second half of Napoleon's rule was a series of humilia- 
tions and blunders. 

Napoleon favored the Southern Confederacy in the American Blunders in 
Civil War, and repeatedly urged England, in vain, to unite with ^^po^^o^^ s 
him in acknowledging it as an independent state. Thus he foreign 
incurred the hostility of the United States. policy 

Then in 1863 he entered upon a disastrous scheme in Mexico. 
That country had repudiated its debts. Several European 
governments had sent fleets to its ports to compel payment to 
their citizens ; but soon it became plain that Napoleon meant 
much more than the mere collection of debts. Thereupon, the 
other governments withdrew from the enterprise. Napoleon 
then sent a large army to overthrow the Mexican Republic and 
to set up as "Emperor of Mexico" his protege, Maximilian, 
an Austrian prince, brother of Emperor Franz Joseph. 

Napoleon expected (1) to secure a larger share of the Mexican 
trade for France ; (2) to increase the prestige of France as ar- 
biter in the destinies of nations ; and (3) to forward a union of 
the Latin peoples of Europe and America, under French leader- 
ship. His act was a defiance of the Monroe Doctrine of the 
United States, but his purpose seemed triumphant until the 
close of the American Civil War. Then the government of the 
United States demanded the withdrawal of the French troops 
from Mexico. Napoleon was obliged to comply. Soon after- 
wards Maximilian was overthrown by the Mexicans, and cap- 
tured and shot. 

More serious still were a number of checks in Napoleon's 
attempts on the Rhine frontier. These brought about his 



408 



THE MAKING OF ITALY 



And some 
restoration 
of political 
liberty 



fall in 1870. That story will be told after we have studied the 
rise of Germany. Here we need only note that as Napoleon 
lost favor with the French populace, through these humiliations 
in foreign relations, he felt compelled to yield to France a larger 
share in the government. In particular, during the latter years 
of his rule, the Legislative Chamber became almost a real 
legislature, with perfect freedom of debate. France had begun 
to "come back." 



For Further Reading. — See comment on pp. 339, 401, as to 
books. Hazen, 194-300, gives the best one story. On the Coup d'Etat, 
Robinson and Beard's Readings, II, 88-94. 



Piedmont 
the hope 
of Italy 



Victor 
Emmanuel 

n 



II. THE MAKING OF ITALY, 1849-1861 

Meantime Italy had been made. "Forty-nine" had shown 
that the Kingdom of Sardinia was the only state from whose 
government real help could be hoped for in a struggle for Italian 
unity. There the ruling house had proved itself ready to dare 
greatly and sacrifice much for the cause. At home, too, the 
king had given a liberal constitution to his people. Thence- 
forward, the hopes of Italian liberals turned to that state. The 
making of Italy is the history of Piedmont from 1849 to 1861. 

The night after the defeat of No vara (p. 400), Charles Albert 
abdicated the crown, and his son, Victor Emmanuel II, became 
king of Sardinia. The young prince was an intense patriot. 
A popular story told how, as he rallied his shattered regiment 
at the close of the fatal day of Novara, and withdrew sullenly 
from the bloody field, covering the retreat, he shook his clenched 
fist at the victorious Austrian ranks with the solemn vow, — 
"By the Almighty, my Italy shall yet be ! " 

The new king was put at once to a sharp test. Austria 
demanded that h^ abolish the new constitution, hateful to 
Austria's divine-right despotism. If he would do so, Austria 
offered easy terms of peace, with promise of military support 
against any revolt. At the same time the inexperienced and 
obstinate Sardinian parliament was embarrassing the king by 



VICTOR BMMAMUEL AND CAVOUR 



409 



foolish opposition and criticism. But Victor Emmanuel nobly 
refused the Austrian bribe. Said he, " I would rather lose my 
crown." In consequence, he had to submit to severe terms from 
Austria and a heavy indemnity. But a frank appeal to his people 
for support gave him a new loyal parliament, which ratified the 
peace, and his conduct won him the title of " the Honest King." 

Austria, which Sardinia wished to expel from Italy, had Cavour 
37,000,000 people. Sardinia was poor and had only 5,000,000 
people. The king and his great minister, Cavour, bent all 
energies to strengthening Sardinia for another struggle and to 
securing allies outside Italy. Victor Emmanuel was essentially 
a soldier. Cavour was the statesman whose brain was to guide_ 
the making of Italy. The king's part was loyally and steadily 
to support him. Exiles and fugitive Liberals from other Italian 
states were welcomed at the Sardinian court and were often 
given high office there, so that the goveniment seemed to belong to 
the whole peninsula. Cavour carried through the parliament 
many economic, military, and social reforms. And, in 1854, he 
sent a small but excellent Sardinian army to assist the allies 
against Russia in the Crimean War (p. 406). Mazzini called 
this action a monstrous moral degradation, and many other 
Liberals condemned it bitterly as immoral ; but it is well to see 
Cavour's two reasons for it. 

1. The Crimean War, unnecessary as it was, was, after all, 
in a way a defiance of despotic Russia. Italy had special 
reason to join in this feeling toward Russia : the Tsar had 
been strongly opposed to the liberal movements of 1848 ; he 
had helped crush Hungary, virtually an ally of Sardinia in 
the war of that period ; and he had declined to recognize the 
accession of Victor Emmanuel. 

2. Cavour wished to show that Sardinia was a military 
power, and to secure for her a place in the councils of Europe, 
so as to obtain intervention for Italy against Austria. This 
second reason, of course, was the deeper motive. Said an 
Italian officer to his soldiers digging in the trenches before Sebas- 
topol, "Of this mud our Italy is to be made." 



And the 
Crimean 
War 



410 



THE MAKING OF ITALY 



Cavour at 
the 

Congress of 
Paris 



The 

French 

alliance 



Sardinia 
absorbs 
Lombardy 



Sardinia 
absorbs 
the 
duchies 



At the Congress of Paris in 1856 (p. 406) Cavour's policy bore 
fruit. Cavour sat there on full equality with the representa- 
tives of the Great Powers ; and, despite Austria's protests, he 
secured attention for a convincing statement of the needs of 
Italy. Upon all minds he impressed forcefully that Italian 
unrest could never cease, nor European yeace he secure, so long 
as Austria remained in the peninsula. 

Three years later this patient diplomatic game was won. 
As a young man, in exile from France, Louis Napoleon had 
been involved in the plots of the Carbonari for Italian freedom 
(p. 341). Cavour now drew him into a secret alliance. In 
return for a pledge of Nice and Savoy, which had once been 
French for a short time. Napoleon promised to come to the aid 
of Sardinia if Cavour could provoke Austria into heginnlnci a war. 

Austria played into Cavour's hand l)y demanding, as a war 
ultimatum, that Italy reduce her army. Napoleon at once 
entered Italy, declaring his purpose to free it "from the Alps 
to the Adriatic." His victories of Magenta and Solferino 
(p. 407) drove Austria forever out of Lombardy, which was 
promptly incorporated into Sardinia. This was the first step in 
the expansion of Sardinia into Italy. The population of the 
growing state had risen at a stroke from five millions to eight. 

Venetia remained in Austria's hands, but Napoleon sud- 
denly made peace. The Italians felt that they had been be- 
trayed by " the infamous treaty " ; ^ and probably they were 
right. Napoleon had no wish that Italy should be one strong, 
consolidated nation ; and he began to see that a free Italy 
would be a united Ital^'. 

But more had already been accomplished than the mere free- 
ing of Lombardy. At the beginning of the war, the peoples 
of the duchies (Parma, Modena, and Tuscany) had driven out 
their dukes (dependents of Austria) and had set up provisional 
governments. At the peace. Napoleon had promised Austria 
that the dukes should be restored. He had stipulated, how- 

' Read James Russell Lowell's Villafranca, to get an idea of the wrath of 
freedom-loving men at Napoleon's betrayal. 



GARIBALDI AND CAVOUR 



411 



ever, that Austria should not use JForce against the duchies ; 
and the people now insisted upon incorporation, with Sardinia. 

For eight months this situation continued, while Cavour 
played a second delicate diplomatic game with Napoleon. 
Only a foreign army could again place the dukes upon their 
thrones, and Cavour filially persuaded Napoleon to leave the 
matter to a plebiscite, his 
own favorite device in 
France. In March, 1860, 
the three duchies by al- 
most unanimous votes ^ 
declared again for annexa- 
tion. This was the second 
step in expansion — and 
the first example in Europe 
of " self-determination," as 
we now use the phrase. 
Sardinia was enlarged once 
more by one third. It 
had now become a state 
of eleven million people, 
comprising all Italy north 
of the papal districts, ex- 
cept Venetia. 

The next advance was 
due in its beginning to 
Garibaldi (a gallant re- 
publican soldier in the Revolution of 1848), who had now 
given his allegiance loyally to Victor Emmanuel. In May, 
1860, Garibaldi sailed from Genoa with a thousand red-shirted 
fellow-adventurers, to arouse rebellion in Sicily. Cavour 
thought it needful to make a show of trying to stop the ex- 
pedition. When it was safely under way, he expressed his 
"regret" in a note to the Powers of Europe. And he had 

' In Tuscany the vote stood 366,571 to 14,925 ; and this was the largest 
adverse vote. 




Garibaldi's Monument in Turin. Gari- 
baldi was the soldier of Italian free- Garibaldi 
dom, as Mazzini was its prophet, and adds 
Cavour its statesman. South 

Italy 



412 



THE MAKING OF ITALY 



With the 
assent of 
the people 



A new 

" Kingdom 

of Italy " 



sent a message to the Sardinian admiral, — "Try to place 
your fleet between Garibaldi and the Neapolitan cruisers. / 
hope you understand me." The admiral "understood" very 
well that he was to protect, not hinder, the expedition. Gari- 
baldi landed safely in Sicily and won the island almost without 
bloodshed. Crossing to the mainland he easily occupied 

Naples also, while the 
Bourbon king fled. Obey- 
ing a popular demand, 
Garibaldi proclaimed Vic- 
tor Emmanuel "King of 
Italy." 

Garibaldi then planned 
to seize Rome from its 
French garrison. Such a 
move would have brought 
on intervention from both 
Austria and France, and 
would have put at hazard 
al,l that had been gained. 
Cavour made prompt de- 
cision. Victor Emmanuel 
with the Sardinian army 
moved south to take up 
the war in the Kingdom 
of Naples, and to check Garibaldi's mad march. Rome and 
the surrounding territory was left to the pope ; but the Marches 
and Umbria (the eastern part of the Papal States) were al- 
lowed, with the Kingdom of Naples, to vote on the question 
of annexation to Sardinia. The vote was even more nearly 
unanimous than that in the duchies had been. 

These additions made the third step in the expansion of "Sar- 
dinia" into "Italy." The new state now comprised all the 
peninsula except Rome and Venetia ; and it reached from the 
Alps to Sicily. This time the population was raised from eleven 
to twenty-two millions. In February, 1861, the first "Italian 




Cavour. From Desmaisons' lithograph. 



CAVOUR'S VICTORY 413 

parliament" met at Turin and enthusiastically confirmed the 
establishment of the "Kingdom of Italy." Cavour's states- 
manship was triumphant. In this first parliament of the new 
nation an opposition party to the great minister hardly raised 
its head. Five months later* Cavour was dead, broken down 
by the terrible strain of his work. His last words were, " Italy 
is made — all is safe." His achievements rank among the most 
marvelous in all modern statesmanship. 

The acquisition of the two remaining provinces, Venetia and 
Rome (1867 and 1870), was intertwined with the making of 
Germany (below). 

For Further Reading. — Bolton King's Italian Unity is the best 
single work. Good accounts will be found in Probyn's Italy, Bolton 
King's Mazzini, Dicey's Victor Emmanuel, or Cesaresco's Cavour. 
Hazen, Andrews, Seignobos, and Phillips, all contain brief treatments. 
Good material will be found in Robinson and Beard's Readings, II. 

Exercise. — Trace the expansion of Sardinia into Italy on the map, 
p. 623. 

Special Report. — Garibaldi's life and adventures. 

III. THE MAKING OF GERMANY, 1861-1871 

Napoleon III ruled France for some twenty years. During William I 
the first half of this period, Cavour made the Kingdom of Italy. °* 
Those years had been barren in Germany ; but during the next 
ten years Bismarck, by far less justifiable methods, was to make 
a German Empire. 

"Forty-nine" had shown Prussia as the only nucleus in that 
day for a German nation ; and even from Prussia nothing could 
be expected as long as Frederick William IV reigned. But in 
1861 that king was succeeded by his brother, William I. This 
was the prince who had been banished for a time in 1848 to 
satisfy the Liberals (p. 395). That party had nicknamed him 
"Prince Cartridge." He was a conservative of the old school, 
and he had bitterly opposed the mild constitutional concessions 
of his brother. But he was also a patriot to the core. He had 
tingled with indignation at the humiliation of Olmiitz. He 
hoped, too, with all his heart, for German unity ; and he believed 



414 



THE MAKING OF GERMANY 



that this unity could be made only after expelling Austria from 
Germany. To expel Austria would be the work of the Prussian 
army. 

The Prussian army differed from all others in Europe. Else- 
where the armies were of the old class, — standing bodies of 
mercenaries and professional soldiers, reinforced at need by 
raw levies from the population. The Napoleonic wars had 
resulted in. a different system for Prussia. In 1807, after Jena, 
Napoleon had required Prussia to reduce her army to forty- 
two thousand men. The Prussian government, however, had 
evaded Napoleon's purpose to keep her weak, bj^ passing fresh 
bodies of Prussians through the regiments at short intervals. 
Each soldier was given only two years' service. Part of each 
regiment was dismissed each year and its place filled with 
new levies. These in turn took on regular military discipline, 
while those who had passed out were held as a reserve. 

After the Napoleonic wars were over, Prussia kept up this 
system. The plan was to make the entire male population a 
trained army ; but it had not been fully followed up. Since 
1815, population had doubled, but the army had been left upon 
the basis of that period. No arrangements had been made for 
organizing new regiments ; and so many thousand men each 
year reached military age without being summoned into the 
ranks. Indeed, not half were called. 

King William's first efforts were directed to increasing the 
number of regiments so as to accommodate 60,000 new recruits 
each year. To do this required a large increase in taxes. But 
the Prussian parliament (Landtag) was jealous of military 
power in the hands of a sovereign hostile to constitutional 
liberty, and it resolutely refused money. Then William found 
a minister to carry out his will, parliament or no. 

This man, who was to be the German Cavour, was Otto von 
Bismarck. Thirteen years earlier. Count Bismarck had been 
known as a grim and violent leader of the "Junkers," the ex- 
treme conservative party made up of young landed aristocrats 
(p. 396). He held to the doctrine of the divine right of kings; 



BISMARCK AND HIS WARS 415 

and when he was announced as the head of a new ministry, 
the Liberals ominously prophesied a coup d'etat. 

Something like a coup d'etat did take place. The Prussian 
constitution declared that the ministers must be "responsible" 
to the Landtag, or parliament. But this did not mean respon- 
sible in the Modern English sense : that is, it did not mean that 
they must resign if outvoted ; but only that they might be 
held to account for their actions. William stood steadfastly 
by his minister ; and for four years Bismarck ruled and collected 
taxes unconstitutionally. 

Over and over again, the Landtag demanded Bismarck's The army 
dismissal, and many violent scenes took place. The Liberals ^^°^s^^^^^ 
threatened to hang him, — as very probably they would have 
done if power had fallen to them by another revolution. Unable 
to do that, they challenged him repeatedly to duels. Bismarck 
in turn denounced any prospect of alliance between the govern- 
ment and democracy as "shameful"; railed at the Liberals 
contemptuously as "mere pedants," and told them bluntly 
that the making of Germany was to be " a matter not of speechi- 
fying and parliamentary majorities, but of blood and iron." 
And for years he grimly went on, muzzling the press, bullying 
or dissolving parliaments, and overriding the national will 
roughshod. 

Meantime, the army was greatly augmented, so that practi- 
cally every able-bodied Prussian became a soldier with three 
years training in camp. First of any large army, too, this new 
Prussian army was supplied with the new invention of breech- 
loading repeating rifles, instead of the old-fashioned muzzle- 
loaders ; and Vo?i Moltkc, the Prussian "chief of staff," made it 
the most perfectly organized military machine in Europe. 

From the first, Bismarck intended that this reconstructed Bismarck's 
army should expel Austria from Germany and force the princes ^"^°sy 

01 Iw AlS 

of the rest of Germany into a true national union. It had not 
been possible for hiin to avoiv his purpose ; but time was grow- 
ing precious, and he began to look anxiously for a chance to 
use his new tool. By a series of master-strokes of unscrupulous 



416 



THE MAKING OF GERMANY 



and daring diplomacy, he brought on three wars in the next 
seven years, — the Danish War (1864), the Six Weeks' War 
with Austria (1866), and the Franco-Prussian War (1870- 
1871). Out of these war clouds emerged a new Germany. 



For a long period the two duchies, Sleswig and Holstein, 
at the base of the Danish peninsula, had been loosely connected 
with the kingdom of Denmark. The union was one of those 
"personal" unions that have often confused the map of Europe. 
That is, the Danish king was also the duke of these two provinces. 
They were not subject to Danish law, but had assemblies of their 
own. The people of Sleswig were, in the main, Danes by blood ; 
but in the southern province the population was German. 

In 1863, the King of Denmark abolished the Sleswig assembly 
and incorporated that duchy in the Kingdom of Denmark. 
Something of this kind had been talked for fifteen years. Many 
people. in Germany resented the prospect that Holstein might 
meet a like fate, and wished instead that the duchies, under 
an independent ruler of their own, should become a member of 
the Germanic Confederation. This situation caused a revival of 
many conflicting and complicated claims by various German 
princes, who, each in his own behalf, disputed the claim of the 
Danish king in the duchies. At any time, it was long felt, this 
Sleswig-Holstein question might plunge Europe into war. 

In all this obscure and confused mess, one thing is absolutely 
clear : Prussia had no claim whatever to any part of the duchies, 
but Bismarck had determined that Prussia should get them. 
He felt no moral hesitation, and he had skillfully guarded against 
interference by the Powers. Russia he had conciliated by aid- 
ing her a few months before to put down a Polish rebellion, so 
that the grateful Tsar was willing to give him a free hand. 
Napoleon III, as Bismarck afterward explained, "had been 
allowed to deceive himself" into thinking that France would be 
permitted to annex Rhine territory to "indemnify" her for 
Prussia's proposed gain ; England would not fight unsupported. 
Austria might have been expected surely to try to keep Denmark 



Austria 



THE SIX WEEKS' WAR 417 

strong, as a check upon Prussia ; but Atistria, the natural ally of 
Denmark, Bismarck made his accomplice in the robbery by ap- 
pealing to her greed. This was perhaps the greatest triumph in 
all Bismarck's crooked and wicked diplomacy. All the rest of his 
plan rested upon it. In 1864 the Prussian and Austrian armies 
seized the duchies, despite the gallant resistance of the Danes. 

Then Bismarck forced Austria into war over the division of The " Six 
the spoils. He claimed both duchies for Prussia ; and, though -^^^ ,f 
at Austria's indignant protest a system of joint protection was with 
temporarily arranged, it soon became plain that the Prussian 
minister meant to secure all the booty. 

King William, however, had scruples. He wanted to fight 
Austria, but he wanted a just cause. Bismarck had drawn 
Italy into an alliance by which that country promised to join in 
an attack upon Austria ; but to satisfy his king, he must pro- 
voke Austria into some offensive act. So he was driven to 
desperate wiles. He continued to make absurd demands regard- 
ing the duchies, such as he knew could not be granted. At 
last, the German Diet summoned Prussia to refer the whole 
matter to its decision (perfectly in accord with the rules of the 
Confederation). Bismarck agreed to do this, if the Diet would 
first exclude Austria from the Germanic Confederation. Under 
Austria's lead the Diet then declared war on Prussia, "the 
wanton disturber of the national peace" (June 14, 1866). 
Bismarck was as jubilant as Cavour had been when he had 
drawn Austria into war in 1859. 

Practically all Germany held to Austria. But Bismarck 
and Von Moltke were certain of success. In three days the 
Prussian army seized Hanover, Hesse, and Saxony, — the 
important hostile states in North Germany ; and in less than 
three weeks from the declaration of war, Austria was com- 
pletely crushed at Sadowa (Koniggratz) in Bohemia. The 
war is known as "the Six Weeks' War." 

The peace gave Venetia to Italy (p. 413). The other still 
more important provisions come under two heads. The 



418 



THE MAKING OF ORRMANY 



first set augmented Prussian territory-. The second set re- 
organized Germany. 

1. Prussia annexed Hesse, Hanover, Nassau, and the "free 
city " of Frankfort. These acquisitions consolidated her formerly 
scattered lands. She also kept Sleswig-Holstein, with the mag- 
nificent harbor of Kiel. Her territory was enlarged one half ; 
and her population rose to thirty millions. No other German 
state approached this — now that Austria was no longer to be 
a German state. 

Frederick H at his accession ruled over two and a half 
million subjects. This number was doubled during his 
reign, with some new territory. By 1815, it had doubled 
again, to ten millions. In the next half-century (1815- 
1866), the population had doubled, without additions of 
territory. The Six Weeks' War raised it from twenty 
to thirty millions. (Compare the map opposite with that 
on page 248.) 

•2. Austria definitely withdrew from German affairs, and 
the Confederation of 1815 was replaced by two federations. 
The first was known as The North German Federation. This 
union was placed under Prussian presidency. It was not a 
loose league like the old Confederacy, but a true federal state 
with much the same constitution as the later German Empire. 
The second federation included the four South German states, 
— Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Baden. This 
union was intended to be similar to the old Confederacy of 1815, 
of which, indeed, it was a survival. 

A third and indirect result of the war concerns the character 
of the Prussian government'. After Sadowa, Bismarck was the 
idol of the Prussian people. As soon as his purpose to fight 
Austria became plain, the Liberal opposition in Prussia had 
been hushed. The Landtag passed enthusiastically the act of 
indemnity he requested for his previous illegal acts, and gave 
him a hearty support that made it easier for him to complete his 



THE SIX WEEKS' WAR 



419 




420 THE MAKING OF GERMANY 

work. Now that the military policy had apparently proven, so 
profitable, the Prussian Liberals in general abandoned their old 
opposition to Prussian autocracy. 

Bismarck had outwitted Louis Napoleon in both the pre- 
ceding wars. After the Danish War, Napoleon had expected 
to get at least Luxemburg, by Prussia's aid, in return for giving 
her a free hand (p. 416). And when the Six Weeks' War began, 
he thought his chance had surely come. Bismarck had visited 
him shortly before, and had again "permitted" him to deceive 
himself. Napoleon meant, however, to remain neutral at first, 
and then step in at the critical moment to save the vanquished. 
The vanquished, he was sure, would be Prussia. In gratitude 
for his protection, Prussia would sanction his annexing German 
territory on the Rhine. 

But the war was over, and over the other way, before Napo- 
leon's armies were ready. The chance was past : but Napoleon 
weakly tried negotiation. He suggested to Bismarck that 
France be allowed to annex part of Bavaria (one of Prussia's 
antagonists in the war), to offset Prussia's annexations ; and 
then France would give Prussia a free hand in reorganizing 
Germany. Bismarck was already planning war with France, 
and this proposal delivered Napoleon into his hands. He 
revealed it privately to the South German states. This terri- 
fied them into a secret 'alliance with Prussia. Now a war with 
France would fuse the two German Confederations into one. 

This Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) Bismarck hurried 
on with characteristic craft. But his success was made possible 
only by the folly and envy of the rulers of France. French 
military authorities looked with jealousy and hatred upon the 
rise of a German nation ; and Napoleon was bent desperately 
on retrieving his tottering reputation. 

The immediate occasion for war grew out of a proposal of 
the Spaniards to place upon their throne a German prince, a 
distant relative of King William of Prussia. Napoleon called 
upon William to prevent this, urging that it would be dangerous 



COMPLETED BY WAR WITH FRANCE 421 

to the peace of Europe. It would have left France between Bismarck 



tricks 
France 



two Hohenzollerns, as in the seventeenth century she had been 
between the two Hapsburgs. William did induce his relative to into the 
decline the offered crown. Napoleon, however, was bent upon pfygsf^n 
humiliating William. So the French ambassador insisted that War 
William should give a definite pledge that the offer, if renewed, 
would not be accepted. King William very properly declined 
to do this ; but his refusal, though firm, was so courteous that 
there was no cause for offense. 

This interview took place at Ems. William at once tele- 
graphed an account of the meeting to Bismarck at Berlin ; 
and Bismarck himself tells us how his own dishonest cunning 
brought war out of this situation after all. Bismarck was at 
dinner with Moltke, speculating hopefully upon the chances 
for the war they wanted. The king's telegram arrived. "As 
I read it to him," says Bismarck, "Moltke's whole bearing sud- 
denly changed. He looked old and sick. ... I asked him if The 
[in case of war] we might surely count upon victory. On his ^JJ^gj^m 
affirmative reply, I said 'Wait a minute,' and, seating myself 
at a small table, I boiled down those two hundred words [of 
the king's message] to about twenty, but without otherwise 
altering or adding anything. It was the same telegram, yet 
something different — shorter, more determined, less dubious. 
I handed it [to Moltke], and asked, 'Well, how does that do?' 
' Yes,' said Moltke, ' it will do in that form.' And he immediately 
became quite young and fresh again. He had got his war, his 
trade." ^ 

As Bismarck had "edited" the telegram, it made King 
William seem to insult the French envoy. Bismarck at once 
gave out the message in this deceitful and irritating form to 
the press ; and, as he hoped, France took fire and declared war 
(July 19, 1870). 

A few French statesmen had kept their heads, Thiers among 
them, and had opposed the declaration, on the ground that 

* Anderson's Constitutions and Documents gives in parallel columns the 
"Ems Dispatch" and Bismarck's version. 



422 



THE MAKING OF GERMANY 



The 

arrogance 
and ineflS- 
ciency of 
Napoleon's ' 
government 



" German 
efficiency " 
surprises 
the world 



The 

German 

Empire 



France was not properly prepared. But Napoleon's war- 
minister answered such objections by the boast, "We are thrice 
ready, down to the last soldier's shoestring"; and France, 
which for centuries had never been beaten by one foe, shouted 
light-heartedly, "On to Berlin." The first attempts to move 
troops, however, showed that the French government was 
honeycombed with corruption and inefficiency. Regiments 
lacked men. There was no discipline. Arsenals were empty. 
Transportation was not ready where it was needed, and supplies 
of all sorts were of poor quality. The French fought gallantly ; 
but they were outnumbered and outgeneraled at every point. 

Marked, indeed, was the contrast between this French 
inefficiency and the "German efficiency," now revealed to 
Europe. The news that France had declared war reached 
Berlin late at night. Von Moltke was awakened by an aide, for 
directions. The story goes that the great general merely turned 
over, saying, "You will find all instructions in the upper right 
hand drawer in my desk. Telegraph the orders as filed there." 

At all events, twelve days after the declaration of war (August 
1), Germany had put one and a quarter million of trained 
troops into the field and had massed most of them on the Rhine. 
The world had never seen such marvelous perfection of military 
preparation Carlyle wrote "It took away the breath of 
Europe." August 2-, William took command at Mainz. The 
Prussians won victory after- victory. One of the two main 
French armies — 173,000 men — was securely shut up in 
Metz. And, September 2, the other, of 130,000 men, was 
captured at Sedan, with Napoleon in person. Napoleon 
remained a prisoner of war for a few months, and soon after- 
ward died in England. Meantime the Prussians pressed on to 
the siege of Paris. 

Out of the war clouds emerged a new German Empire. 
The South-German peoples went wild with enthusiasm for 
Prussia. By a series of swift treaties, while this feeling was 
at its height, Bismarck brought them all into the North Ger- 
man Confederation. Then he arranged that the King of 



FRAUD AND VIOLENCE 



423 



Bavaria and other leading German rulers should ask King 
William to take the title of German Emperor. And on Janu- 
ary 18, 1871, while the siege of Paris was still going on, in the 
ancient palace of French kings at Versailles, William solemnly 
assumed that title. This act was soon ratified by a parliament 
of all Germany. 

Germany had been made not merely by "blood and iron," but Bismarck's 

also by fraud and falsehood. One ' can hardly tell the story methods : 

the 
moral 
question 




'Proclamation of the German Empire. From the painting by von 
Werner. Compare with the humiliation of the German envoys in the 
same place forty years later, when that Empire, born of war, had been 
destroyed by another war of its making ; see p. 686. 

of such gigantic audacity and successful trickery without seem- 
ing to glorify it. Of course, Bismarck did not work for low or 
personal ends. He was inspired by a real and broad patriotism. 
The national union which he made had to come before the 
German people could reach the best elements of modern life. 

But he sought his end by base means. Bismarck's methods 
were distinctly lower than Cavour's ; and his success tended 
to lower the tone of morality among nations. "Treaties," 
he said, "are scraps of paper"; and again, "when Prussia's 
power is in question I know no law." His policy of fraud and 



424 THE MAKING OF GERMANY 

violence, too, while successful at the moment, left Germany 
troubled with burning questions, and burdened with the crush- 
ing weight of militarism and with the rule of the police and the 
drill sergeant in private life (pp. 507-513). In his Prussian 
hate for democracy and in his Prussian contempt for interna- 
tional morality, he started the new Empire upon the road which, 
forty years later, plunged it into the abyss. 

Italy wins One good thing came from Bismarck's victory over Napo- 

Rome in j^^^^ ^^ ^j^^ outbreak of war in 1870, Napoleon was obliged 

at once to withdraw his garrison from Rome (p. 400). Then 
Victor Emmanuel's troops at last marched into Italy's an- 
cient capital, and the Roman citizens ratified this consum- 
mation of the union of Italy by an almost unanimous vote. 
(Cf. map on p. 623.) 

The later story of France and Germany can he best understood 
after studying the groicth of constitutional government in England. 

For Further Reading. — Hazen, Europe Since 1815, 240-306. 
Headlam's Bismarck, and his Germany from 1815 to 1889, are excellent. 

Exercise. — 1. Review the story of Germany from the Congress of 
Vienna to the estabUshment of the Empire. 2. The story of Italy from 
1814 to the final union of the peninsula in 1870. Note that from 1850 
to 1870 continental European history in concerned with (1) the shame 
of the Second Empire in France for the entire period ; (2) the glorious 
raaldng of Italy in the first half ; and (3) the making of Germany by 
fraud and violence in the second half. 



PART VIII 

ENGLAND 1815-1914: EEFORM WITHOUT REVOLUTION 

England in the nineteenth century served as a political model for 
Europe. The English developed constitutional monarchy, parliamentary 
government, and safeguards for personal liberty. Other nations have 
only imitated them. — Seignobos. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



THE FIRST REFORM BILL,' 1832 

In the eighteenth century, we have seen, England acquired a 
world-empire and gave the world the Industrial Revolution. 
But, in political matters, that century was singularly uninterest- 
ing. In the preceding century England had led the world in 
political progress ; and she was to do so again in the nineteenth 
century. But in the eighteenth, except for accidental progress 
in the matter of ministerial government (p. 212 ff.), England 
actually went backward in freedom. Parliament had never 
been democratic in make-up, and, after 1688, it shriveled up 
into the selfish organ of a small class of landlords. 

This came about largely by accident. The House of Com- 
mons contained 658 members. Ireland sent 100, and Scotland 
45. Each of the 40 English counties, large or small, sent two. 
The rest came from "parliamentary boroughs" in England and 
Wales. The old kings had summoned representatives from 
whatever boroughs they pleased ; but a borough which had 
once sent representatives had the right, by custom, to send 
them always afterward. At first the power to "summon" new 
boroughs was used wisely to recognize new towns as they grew 
up. But the Tudor monarchs, in order better to manage parlia- 

425 



Political 
retrogres- 
sion of 
the 

eighteenth 
century 



" Virtual 
representa- 
tion " 



426 



ENGLAND, 1815-1914 



merits, had summoned representatives from little hamlets which 
had no just claim to representation. These were "pocket 
boroughs" — owned or controlled by some lord of the court 
party. 

This bad condition was made loorse by natural causes. In 
early times the south of England, with its fertile soil and its 
ports on the Channel, had been the most populous part ; but in 
the eighteenth century, with the growth of manufactures, popu- 
lation shifted to the coal and iron regions of the north and west. 
In Elizabeth's day that part of the island had only insignificant 
towns. Before ISOO, great cities grew up there, like Birming- 
ham, Bradford, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, some 
of them with more than 100,000 people (p. 374). But these new 
towns could get no representation in Parliament, because after 
the "Restoration" of 1660 the kings had lost the right to create 
new boroughs, just when that power might have been used to 
public advantage. 

Conditions had become unspeakably unfair and corrupt. 
Dunivich was under the waves of the North Sea, which had 
gradually encroached upon the land. But a descendant of an 
ancient owner of the soil possessed the right to row out with 
the sheriff on election day and choose himself as representative 
to Parliament for the submerged town. Old Sarum was once a 
cathedral city on the summit of a lofty hill ; but new Sarum, 
or Salisbury, a few miles away on the plain, drew the popula- 
tion and the cathedral to itself until not a vestige of the old 
town remained. Then the grandfather of William Pitt bought 
• the soil where Old Sarum had stood, and it was for this' " pocket 
borough" that the great Pitt entered Parliament. It was wit- 
tily said at the time, that the Pitt family had "an hereditary 
seat in the House of Commons." So, Gatton was a park, and 
Corfe Castle a picturesque ruin, — each with a representative 
in Parliament. 

Then there were a great number of petty villages or little 
towns, with six or a dozen or fifty voters. Bosseney in Cornwall 
had three cottages. It had, however, nine voters, eight of them 



NEED OF REFORM IN 1815 427 

in one family. And these voters elected two members to Parlia- 
ment. Even in large towns, the rules which determined the 
right to vote were often fantastic, and sometimes they shut out 
all but a fraction of the inhabitants. Portsmouth, with 46,000 
people, had only 103 voters; and in Weymouth, in 1826, the 
right to vote went with the right to share in the rents of certain 
ancient village property, — and so twenty persons, some of them 
paupers, voted because of their title each to one twentieth of a 
sixpence. 

Many of these places also, with few voters, were "pocket "Pocket 
boroughs," — the voters being dependent upon a neighboring ''°''°"8 s 
landlord and always electing his nominee. Large places had 
sometimes a like character. In 1828, at Newark, the Duke of 
Newcastle drove out 587 tenants who had ventured to vote 
against his candidate. . Complaint was made in Parliament ; 
but the Duke answered calmly, "Have I not a right to do 
what I like with my own?" So the Duke of Norfolk filled 
eleven seats ; and fully two thirds of the whole House of Com- 
mons were really the appointees of great landlords. 

When not pocket boroughs, such places commonly were " Rotten 
" rotten boroughs." That is, the few voters sold the seats in Par- °^°^^ ^ 
liament as a regular part of their private revenue. In 1766 
Sudbury advertised in the public press that its parliamentary 
seat was for sale to the highest bidder. Moreover, all voting 
was viva-voce, and the polls were held open for two weeks — 
so that there was every chance to sell and buy votes. 

The House of Commons had become hardly more represent- 
ative than the House of Lords. As the English historian 
Macaulay said, the "boasted representative system" of Eng- 
land had decayed into " a monstrous system of represented ruins 
and unrepresented cities." 

Progressive men had long seen that Parliament no longer Reform 
represented the nation. The reason why no reform had been by^oreign 
secured was that from 1689 to 1815 all energies loent to the long war, 
French wars. In the twelve years (1763-1775), between the ^^^^'^ ^5 
" Seven Years' War " (p. 243) and the American Revolution, 



428 



ENGLAND, 181.S-1914 



the Whig leaders did attempt wise changes. In 1766 William 
Pitt declared that Parliament must reform itself from within, 
or it would soon be reformed "with a vengeance" from without ; 
and during the next few years many mass meetings urged 
Parliament to take action. 

But George III was determined to prevent reform. The 
war with America was connected closely with this determina- 
tion. George felt that his two indolent and gross predecessors 
had allowed kingly power to slip from their hands (p. 214). 
He meant to get it back, and to "be a king" in fact as well as 
in name, as his mother had urged him. To do this, he must 
be able to control Parliament. It would be easier to control 
it as it was then — made up so largely of representatives of pocket 
boroughs — than to control a Parliament that really represented 
the nation. 

Therefore, when just at this time the Americans began to 
cry, " No taxation without representation," King George felt it 
needful to put them down. If their claim was allowed, so 
must be the demand of Manchester and other new towns in 
England for representation in Parliament. But if the American 
demand could be made to seem a treasonable one, on the part 
of a distant group of rebels, then the king could check the 
movement in England also. This explains why King George 
took so active a part against America. 

The American victory seemed at first to have won an im- 
mediate victory for English freedom also. King George was 
forced to say that he was "pleased to appoint" among the 
leading ministers his chief enemy, Charles Fox, the special friend 
of America. And William Pitt the Younger at once took up the 
work of reform. Even before peace was declared, Pitt as- 
serted vehemently : Parliament " is not representative of the 
people of Great Britain. It is representative of nominal bor- 
oughs, and exterminated towns, of noble families, of wealthy 
individuals." This condition, he declared, alone had made it 
possible for the government to wage against America "this 
unjust, cruel, wicked, and diabolical war." 



REACTION AFTER 1815 429 

In the years that immediately followed, Pitt introduced Reform 
three different bills for reform ; but, before anything was accom- ^ f^^^f ^ ^^ 
plished, came the French Revolution. This shelved all prospect the French 
of success. In 1790 on a proposal for reform, the keynote of the ^^^°l"t*o° 
opposition was struck by a Tory speaker who exclaimed that 
no wise man would select a hurricane season to repair his roof, 
however dilapidated. Soon the violence of the Revolutionists 
in France turned the whole English middle class definitely against 
change — and projects for reform slumbered for forty years 
more (1790-1830). 

This unhappy check came just when the evils of the Indus- 
trial Revolution were becoming serious. 'But the Tory party, 
which carried England stubbornly to victory through the tremen- 
dous wars against Napoleon, was totally unfitted to cope with 
internal questions. Its leaders looked on every time-sanctioned 
abuse as sacred. Even after the fall of Napoleon, they refused 
to listen to proposals for change. 

The peace of 1815 was followed by a general business depres- Tory 
sion, — the first modern "panic." Large parts of the working ^^^^^^'^^ 
classes had no work and no food. This resulted in labor riots Napoleonic 
and in political agitation. The Tory government met such ^"^ 
movements by stern laws, forbidding public meetings (without 
consent of magistrates) under penalty of death; suspending 
habeas corpus (for the last time in England until the World War) ; 
and suppressing debating societies. 

This repressive policy, with the denial of free speech, had 
begun, properly enough, during the Napoleonic war, to guard 
against treason (as in the American Espionage Act during the 
recent World War) ; but it was carried to absurd and tyrannical 
extremes and was kept up after all need was gone. In 1812 two 
editors were condemned to a year's imprisonment for saying 
that a rival paper had been guilty of exaggeration in calling 
the Prince of Wales an Adonis (a Greek of great beauty)^ Be- 
tween 1808 and 1821, ninety-four other journalists were pun- 
ished for libelous or seditious utterances, and twelve of them 
were condemned to transportation to penal colonies. Several 



430 ENGLAND, 181.'^1914 

of these condemnations came after the war. The government 
even prosecuted men for sedition who merely signed petitions 
for the reform of Parliament. 

Says Dr. Cross {History of England, 869), "The hide-bound 
Tories in the Ministry lumped the Radicals, violent and peaceful, 
frenzied and sensible, without discrimination, as revolutionists." 
As in like action by reactionaries at all times in all lands, this 
was partly from honest ignorance, partly from cruel and un- 
scrupulous partisanship. A parliamentary committee solemnly 
charged the Radicals with intending to destroy or distribute 
private property. And the infamous "Oliver the Spy," a 
government agent, * manufactured " false evidence, and stirred 
up risings among the poor, so as to have something to "reveal'' 
to his credulous and unscrupulous employers. Juries usually 
refused to condemn men accused by the government on such 
evidence ; but there were three executions and several trans- 
portations. The only- measure adopted by the government to 
remedy the causes of disorder was a grant of £1,000,000, to build 
new churches, on the ground that the social disquiet was "due 
to inadequate religious instruction" (instead of to inadequate 
food). 
Some The year 1821 marks the beginning of slow gains for reform. 

® J ^ In 1825 parliament recognized the right of workingmen to unite 

movements in labor unions — which had always before been treated as 
conspiracies. In 1828 political rights were restored to Protes- 
tant dissenters (p. 211 ; — ■ Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists) ; 
and the next year the same justice was secured for Catholics. 
The atrocious laws regarding capital punishment, too, were 
partially modified. The English penal code of the eighteenth 
century has been fitly called a "sanguinary chaos." Its worst 
faults, like the abuses of the rotten borough era in politics, 
were due to the English dislike for change. Whenever in the 
course of centuries a crime had become especially troublesome, 
some Parliament had fixed a death penalty for it, and no later 
Parliament had ever revised the code. In 1660 the number of 
"capital crimes" was fifty (three and a half times as many as 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1832 



431 



there were in New England at the same time under the much 
slandered "blue laws"), and by 1800 the number had risen 
to over two hundred. To steal a sheep, to snatch a handker- 
chief out of a woman's hand, to cut down trees in an orchard, 
were all punishable by death. The reformer Rom ill}/ had long 
agitated for the repeal of these absurd and cruel laws ; and in 
1823 Parliament struck the death penalty from 100 offenses. 

The year 1830 really begins the new era. George IV was suc- 
ceeded by his brother William IV, a more liberal-minded king ; 
and the French Revolution of the same year, by its moderation 
and by its success, strengthened the reform party in England. 
A new Parliament was at once chosen ; and the Whigs promptly 
introduced a motion to reform the representation. The prime 
minister was the Tory Wellington, the hero of Waterloo. He 
scorned the proposal, declaring that he did not believe the exist- 
ing representation "could be improved"! This speech cost 
him his popularity, both in and out of Parliament. He was 
compelled to resign ; and the Whigs came into power with Earl 
Grey as prime minister. Grey was a stately English lord, whose 
eloquence at the trial of Warren Hastings forty years before 
had been celebrated by Macaulay. In the House of Commons 
the chief member of the ministry was Lord John Russell. He 
was the son of a duke, and his title of Lord at this time was only 
a "courtesy title." 

Lord Russell drew the bill for the reform of Parliament. 
In introducing the measure in the Commons, he pictured the 
amazement of a stranger who had gone to England to study the 
free representative government of which Englishmen boasted. 
The stranger would be shown, said Lord Russell, a ruined 
mound [p. 426], and be told that that mound sent two repre- 
sentatives to Parliament. He would be taken to a stone 
wall with three niches in it, and be told that those niches sent 
two representatives to Parliament. He would see a green park, 
with no sign of human habitation, and be told that that park 
sent two representatives to Parliament. And then he might 
chance to see populous towns, full of human enterprise and 



Struggle 
for par- 
liamentary 
reform 
begins 
in 1830 



FaUof 
Wellington 



The Whig 
leaders 



432 



ENGLAND, 1815-1914 



A moderate 
reform 



The king 
forced to 
yield to his 
ministers 



Lords and 
Commons 



industry, but he would be told that most of those towns sent 
no representatives to Parliament. 

The Bill was a very moderate one : It aimed only (1) to dis- 
tribute representation somewhat more fairly, and (2) to extend 
the franchise to a somewhat larger class of voters. The manner 
of voting was not affected, because Earl Grey objected to the 
ballot system. 

Representation was to be taken away from 56 "rotten" 
or "pocket" boroughs, and one member was to be taken 
from 30 more small places under 4000 people each. The 
seats gained in this way were given to new boroughs that 
needed representation. The suffrage was extended to all 
householders in the towns who owned or rented houses 
worth $50 a year, and to the whole "farmer" class in the 
country (p. 380). Farm laborers and the artisan class in 
towns (who lived in tenements or as lodgers) were still left 
out. 

To the Tories this mild measure seemed to threaten the 
foundations of society. Fierce debates lasted month after 
month. In March of 1831 the ministry carried the "second 
reading" by a majority of one vote. It was plain that the 
Whig majority was not large enough to save the bill from hostile 
amendment. (A bill has to pass three "readings," and amend- 
ments are usually considered after the second.) The ministry 
decided to dissolve, and "appeal to the country" for better 
support. The king was bitterly opposed to this plan. A pas- 
sionate scene took place between him and his ministers, but 
he was forced to give way — ■ and so, incidentally, it was settled 
that the ministry, not the king, dissolves Parliament. This 
means that Parliament really dissolves itself. 

The dissolution proved that the ministry meant to stand or 
fall on the bill. People showed their joy everywhere by illumi- 
nating windows ; and a mob smashed the windows of Welling- 
ton's castle because they were not lighted. The Whigs went 
into the campaign with the cry, "The Bill, the whole Bill, and 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1832 433 

nothing but the Bill." Despite the unrepresentative nature 
of Parliament, they won an overwhelming majority. In June 
Lord Russell introduced the bill again. In September it passed 
the Commons, 345 to 239. Then the Ix)rds again calmly voted 
it down. 

One session of the second Parliament was wasted. The na- 
tion cried out passionately against the House of Lords. There was 
much violence, and England seemed on the verge of revolution. 

In December the same Parliament met for a new session. 
Lord Russell introduced the same bill for the third time. It 
passed the Commons by an increased majority. This time the 
Lords did not venture altogether to throw it out, but they 
tacked on hostile amendments. 

The king had always had power to make new peers at will. The 
Lord Grey now demanded from the king authority to create ^ .f^ 
enough new peers to save the bill. William refused. Grey 
resigned. For eleven days England had no government. The 
Tories tried to form a ministry, but could get no majority. 
Angry mobs stormed about the king's carriage in the streets. 
It was feared that William and Wellington might try to over- 
throw the Whigs by a cowp d'etat; and the Whig leaders went 
so far as secretly to prepare for civil war. Finally the king 
recalled the Whig ministry. 

William was still unwilling to create new peers, but he offered The Lords 
to use his personal influence to get the upper House to pass the . ®5^°™® ^°- 
bill. Happily, Earl Grey was firm to show where real sover- House 
eignty lay ; and finally the king was compelled to sign the paper 
(still exhibited in the British Museum) on which the Earl had 
written, "The King grants permission to Earl Grey ... to 
create such a number of new peers as will insure the passage of 
the Reform Bill." This ended the struggle. It was not needful 
actually to make new peers. The Tory lords withdrew from the 
sessions, and the bill passed, June 4, 1832. 

Incidentally the long contest had settled two points in the 
constitution : 



434 



ENGLAND, 1815-1914 



The " King's 
ministers " 
became the 
nation's ex- 
ecutive 



Ji had shown how the Commons could control fhr Lords. 

It had shown that the ministers arc not the king's ministry, except 
in name, but that they are really the ministry, or servants, of 
the Hou.se of Commons. This principle has never since been 
threatened. The kinjj acts only through the ministers. Even 
the speech he reads at the opening of Parliament is written for 
him, and A\ithout consulting him ; and he cannot change a 
phrase in it. 



Excursus 
on 

ministerial 
government 



The way in which a change in ministry is brought about 
should be clearly understood. If the ministry is outvoted on 
any matter of importance, it must resign. If it does not do so, 
and claims to be in doubt whether it has really lost its majority, 
its opponents will test the matter by moving a vote of "lack 
of confidence." If this carries, the ministry takes it as a mandate 
to resign. 

There is only one alternative : If the ministry believes that 
the nation will support it, it may dissolve Parliament, and 
"appeal to the country." If the new Parliament gives it a 
majority, it may go on. If not, it must at once give way to a 
new ministry. 

In form, the new ministry is chosen by the king ; but in 
reality, he simply names those whom the wall of the majority in the 
Commons has plainly pointed out. Indeed, he names only one 
man, whom he asks to "form a government." This man be- 
comes prime minister, and selects the other ministers. In a 
parliamentary election, Englishmen really vote also for the 
next prime minister, just as truly, and about as directly, as we 
in this country vote for our President. If the king asks any 
one else to form a ministry but the man whom the Commons 
have accepted as their leader, probably the man asked will 
respectfully decline. If he tries to act, he will fail to get other 
strong men to join him, and his ministry will at once fail. If 
there is any real uncertainty as to which one of several men is 
leader, the matter is settled by conference among the leaders, 
and the new ministry, of course, includes all of them. 



" RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT " 



435 



A curious feature to an American student is that all this 
complex procedure rests only on custom — nowhere on a written 
constitution. Each member of the Cabinet is the head of some 
great department — Foreign Affairs, Treasury, War, and so on. 
The leading assistants in all these departments — some forty 
people now — are included in the ministry. About twenty 
of the forty, — holding the chief positions, — make the inner 
circle which is called the Cabinet. 

The Cabinet is really "the Government," and is often referred 
to by that title. It is the real executive ; and it is also the " steer- 
ing committee" of the legislature. In their private meetings the 
members of the Cabinet decide upon general policy. In Parlia- 
ment they introduce bills and advocate them. As ministers, 
they carry out the plans agreed upon The prime minister 
corresponds in a way to a combination of the President and the 
Congressional Speaker in America. The Cabinet is what our 
cabinet would be if the President were merely its head, and if 
its members had seats in Congress with control over the order 
of business in that body, and with power to dissolve it and appeal 
to the people if Congress differed with it. 

The English dissolution, it should be seen clearly, is a sort 
of referendum. It gives the English people a better chance 
to express their will directly on particular important questions 
than we in America get — except in very rare instances. That 
is one reason why many Englishmen claim that their govern- 
ment. — in spite of the "figurehead royalty" — is really more 
democratic than ours. The English government does respond 
)nore quickly to the will of the nation than ours does. 

Moreo\'er, the union of executive and legislature fixes responsi- 
hllity. In America, Congress passes a multitude of bills and 
appropriations, often by log-rolling processes, for which no 
party and no leading member will confess responsibility. In 
England, the ministry is responsible for every bill that is passed. 
Either the ministry introduces the bill to begin with, or at least 
permits or adopts it. If not willing to do that, it either defeats 
the bill, or is itself defeated. It cannot dodge responsibility 



The English 
referendum 



Responsi- 
bility for 
legislation 
clearly 
fixed 



436 



ENGLAND, 1815-1914 



Progress in 
England 
and America 
in the 
thirties 
contrasted 



to the nation. Quite as much, too, it is responsible if it fails 
to introduce and pass bills desired by the nation. 

The king's veto has disappeared in these changes. The last 
veto was one by Queen Anne in 1707. Now the only veto is a 
dissolution of Parliament by the ministry ; and if the country 
is in favor of the "vetoed" measure, the next Parliament is 
certain to make it into law. 

The Speaker of the House of Commons, it should be under- 
stood, holds a very different position from the Speaker in 
America. Here he is the party leader of the majority party. 
Until 1911, he appointed committees so as to give complete 
control of Congress to his own party, and he still has great 
influence in such matters ; and in debates, he recognizes members 
in such -order as he and the leaders of his party have decided 
upon — not simply as they claim the floor. In England, the 
Speaker is absolutely non-partisan, — a true presiding " mode- 
rator," bound to treat all members and parties impartially. 

No authority in England can set aside a law of Parlia- 
ment, as our Supreme Court sometimes does with laws of 
Congress. There is no possibility of a deadlock between 
legislature and executive; ,nor, since the "mending" of 
the House of Lords in 1914 (p. 480), can there be any long- 
continued deadlock between the two Houses of the Legis- 
lature. An election is followed by the immediate meeting 
of the new Parliament, while in the United States a new 
Congress does not meet, commonly, until thirteen months . 
after its election. The English election, too, is very often 
to decide some particular important question. The Eng- 
lish people can express their will in such an election, and 
feel sure that it will be made promptly into law. 

This is the place to note certain relations between . American 
and English Democracy. The First Reform Bill in England 
was one episode in a general period of democratic advance. The 
Second French Revolution and its results for Europe have been 
mentioned. In America, too, much progress was made at 



ENGLISH AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 437 

about the same time. All the original States had shut out large 
classes from voting (more than half all the men on an average) 
and still larger classes from holding office, by graded property 
qualifications. But in 1821, fifteen of the twenty-four States 
had manhood suffrage, and the number was steadily growing. 
Public officials, too, and the " gentleman " class, were just ceas- 
ing to wear powdered hair, knee breeches, and silk stockings, 
to mark themselves off from the common people. 

Moreover, the wider franchise of the American States was 
being used more directly than at first. In 1800 only six of the 
sixteen commonwealths of that day chose presidential electors 
by the voters directly ; but, after 1832, South Carolina was the 
only State that continued to choose them by the legislature. 
The electors, too, were ho longer supposed to be a select coterie 
who were to "refine" the popular judgment by their own higher 
intelligence. They had become — what they have since 
remained — "mere letter carriers," to register the will of the 
people. 

In England the nation politely shelved the old hereditary, 
monarchic executive by taking over its powers through a commit- 
tee of the elected Parliament. In America the people captured 
the old indirectly elective, aristocratic executive, by making it 
directly responsive to the popular will. The victory of Jackson, 
in the election of 1828, marks this change. He Was called the 
" chosen Tribune of the people." Since that time, the President 
has been more truly representative of the people's will than 
Congress has. One result of the contrast between English and 
American democracy is that, while the royal veto has utterly 
vanished, the Presidential veto has steadily grown in importance. 

Thus we have two types of democratic government in 
the world, both developed by English-speaking peoples. 
They differ from each other mainly in regard to the exec- 
utive. In the United States, the executive is a president, 
or governor, independent of the legislature. The other 

republics upon this continent have adopted this American 

• - 



438 ENGLAND, 1815-1914 

type. In England, the executive has become practically 
a steering committee of the legislature. This type is the 
one adopted by most of the free governments of the world 
outside America. 

Exercise. — With the last pages, review pp. 209-214, on the Revo- 
lution of 1688 and the beginning of cabinet government. 

For Further Reading. — The most brilliant story is Justin 
McCarthy's Epoch of Reform, 25-83. Rose's Rise of Democracy, 9-52, 
is excellent. See also one or more of the following : Hazen's Europe 
Since 1815, 409^15, 428-438; Beard's English Historians, 538-548, 
549-565, and 594-607 (extract from Bagehot's English Constitution) ; 
Robinson and Beard's Readings, II, 239-245; Cheyney's Readings, 
679-690. Weyman's Chipping Borough (fiction) shows forcefully the 
mob influence in 1832 and reflects faithfully the snobbishness of the 
middle-class Liberals of the time. 



CHAPTEli XXIX 

POLITICAL REFORM IN THE VICTORIAN AGE 

The First Reform Bill introduced a new era, which we call The 

the Victorian aqc. In 1837 William IV was succeeded by his "Victorian 

. ' _ '' age 

niece, Victoria, whose reign filled the cnext sixty-four years. 

Victoria came to the throne a modes't," high-minded girl of 
eighteen years. She was not brilliant, or particularly intellec- 
tual ; but she grew into a worthy, sensible, good woman, of 
splendid moral influence, deeply loved by her people and ad- 
mired by all the world. In 1840 she married Albert, the ruler 
of a small German principality ; and their happy, pure, and 
lovely family life, blessed with nine children, was an example 
new to European courts for generations. , 

Victoria kept willingly the position of a "constitutional" 
sovereign ; but, on some critical occasions, she did induce her 
ministers to moderate their intended policy. The most notable 
instance of this sort was in 1861, when her suggestion and in- 
fluence softened a communication from the English government 
to the United States which otherwise might have driven the 
two countries into war — the Mason and Slidell incident at 
the opening of our Civil War. 

The Victorian age was a period of peace, prosperity. World con- 
refinement of morals, intellectual glory, democratic advance, dihons at its 

..... opemng 
and of tremendous expansion of civilization in space. To 

appreciate this progress of the last two thirds of the nine- 
teenth century, it is needful to grasp conditions when the 
Victorian era began. The world was still a small, despotic 
world, far more remote from the great progressive world 
of 1900 than from the world of 1600. Civilization held 
only two patches on the globe, — western Europe and 
eastern North America. In the latter, the real frontier 

439 



440 



THE VICTORIAN AGE 



of the United States reached less than one third the way 
across the continent, and politics and society were dominated 
by the slave power. Europe knew " Germany " only as a 
pious aspiration of revolutionaries, and "Italy" as a 
"geographical expression." Metternich stood guard over 

central Europe. On the 
east hung Russia, an 
inert mass, in the chains 
of her millions of serfs. 
Under the contemptible 
Orleans monarchy, 
France was taking 
breath between spas- 
modic revolutions. 
England herself had 
only in part thrown off 
the long oligarchic rule 
of her landlord class. 
The rest of the globe 
hardly counted : a fringe 
of Australia held a con- 
vict camp ; eastern Can- 
ada was a group of 
jealous petty provinces, 
learning to agitate in a 
disorderly fashion for 
self-government; Span- 
ish America, prostrate in anarchy, gave as yet little hope 
of its coming renaissance ; Japan was to sleep a generation 
longer ; while the two largest continents were undisturbed 
in their native barbarism, except for England's grasp upon 
the hem of India and South Africa. 




Victoria Taking the Coronation Oath. 
After the painting by Landseer at 
Windsor Palace. 



England's Throughout the century England remained the most powerful 

r°d** hi ^^^ ^^^ richest country in the world, — leading especially in 

manufacturing, in commerce, in sea-power, and in literature. 



REFORM WITH(3UT REVOLUTION 



441 



In this last respect, English leadership is marked by a long list 
of famous names. True, Burns, Byron, and Scott belong to 
the age of the Georges ; Wordsworth and Macaulay, too, had 
begun their activity before the accession of Victoria. But 
Brotvning, Tennyso7i, Dickeris, "George Eliot," and Thackeray 
are only a part of the dazzling Victorian galaxy in poetry and 
fiction, while such names as Darwin, Tyndal, and Huxley sug- 
gest some of the services of Victorian scientists to the world. 
During the same period, the literary charm of Carlyle, Ruskin, 
and William Morris enabled them to preach effectively to all 
English-speaking peoples their new views of life and of art. 

In Parliament, reform crowded upon reform. The First Re- 
form Bill gave votes to 650,000 people — or to one out of six 
grown men. This was five times as liberal as the French fran- 
chise after the Revolution of 1830. Political power in England 
had passed from a narroiv, selfish landlord oligarchy to a broad 
enlightened middle-class aristocracy. For more than forty years 
(1790-1830), Parliament had openly been contemptuous of 
public opinion. Thenceforward it has always been promptly 
responsive to that force. 

The great political parties soon took new names. The name 
Conservative now began to replace Tory, and Liberal replaced 
Whig. During the next forty-two years (1832-1874), the Tories, 
or Conservatives, were in power less than one sixth of the time. 
After those forty years, they, too, adopted a liberal policy 
toward the working classes, and secured longer leases of power. ^ 

' Reference Table of Administrations : 
Conserv- 



Liberals atives 

1830-34 . ' Grey 

1834-35 Peel 

1835-41 . Melbourne 

1841-46 Peel 

1846-52 . Russell 

1852 Derby 

(1) Aberdeen 

(2) Palmerston 
1858-59 Derby 



1859-66 



1852-58 



After 1832, 
England a 
middle-class 
aristocracy 



Liberals and 
Conserva- 
tives 



Consen- 
Liberals atives 

(1) Palmerston 

(2) Russell 

1866-68 Derby 

1868-74 . Gladstone 

1874-80 Disraeli 

1880-85 . Gladstone 

1885-86 Salisbury 

1886 . . Gladstone 

1886-92 Salisbury 



442 



THE VICTORIAN AGE 



Disraeli 

and 

Gladstone 



The man Avho did most to educate the Conservatives into 
this new attitude toward social reform was Disraeli, the real 
leader of the party through the third quarter of the nine- 
teenth century. By birth Disraeli was a Jew. He was an 
author, and a man of brilliant genius. Some critics called him 

" a Conservative with 
Radical opinions," while 
others insisted that he 
had no principles in pol- 
itics. Carlyle expressed 
the general amazement at 
Disraeli's attitude and at 
his success in drawing his 
party with him, — "a 
superlative Hebrew con- 
jurer, spell-binding all the 
great lords, great parties, 
great interests, and lead- 
ing them by the nose, like 
helpless, mesmerized, som- 
nambulant cattle." 

An even more impor- 
tant figure was Disraeli's 
great adversary, William 
E. Gladstone. Gladstone 
entered Parliament in 
1833, at the first election after the Reform Bill, and soon proved 
himself a powerful orator and a master of debate. He was 




Gladstone in old age. - 
graph. 



• From a photo- 



1892-95 



1895-190G 



1906 



Reference Table of Administr.\tion : — Cont. ' 

Conserv- Conserv- 

atives Liberals atives 

[1915-1918 A coalition war-ministry, 

led by Lloyd George] 
1919- A coalition ministry, 

mainly Conservatives, 
led by Lloyd George. 



Liberals 
I (1) Gladstone 
[ (2) Rosebery 

I (1) Salisbury 
■ ■ ■ ■ I (2) Balfour 
f Campbell-Bannerman 
1 Asquith (to 1915) 



GLADSTONE AND DISRAELI 443 

then an extreme Tory. By degrees he grew Liberal, and thirty 
years later he succeeded Lord Russell as the unchallenged leader 
of that party. For thirty \'ears more he held that place, — 
four times prime minister, — and at the close of his long career 
he had become an advanced Radical. His early friends accused 
Gladstone bitterly as inconsistent or treacherous ; but the world 
at large accepted his own simple explanation of his changes, — 
" I was brought up to distrust liberty ; I learned to believe in 
it." For the last quarter-century of his life he was widely 
revered as England's "Grand Old Man." 

After this general survey, we turn to some of the details 
of England's progress in the Victorian age. 

The Tories at onec aeeepted the result of 1833, as the Conserva- Working- 
tive party in England always does when a new reform has ^^^^ 
once been forced upon them. But they planted themselves upon after 1832 
it as a finalitif. J^ven the Whigs, who were by no means demo- 
crats, agreed in this "finality" view. In the Parliament of 
1837 a Radical moved a resolution in favor of a further ex- 
tension of the franchise ; but Lord Russell, speaking for the 
ministry, condemned it savagely, and only twenty-two votes 
supported it. A few eager Radicals for a time kept up a cry 
for a more liberal franchise, but soon they gave up the contest, 
to take part in the great social legislation of the period. 

But outside Parliament, and outside the sovereign middle The 

class, lay the masses of workinqwen, who knew that the victorv fade-umon 

' . .' movement 

of 1832 had been won largely by their sympathy and public 

demonstrations, and who felt that they had been cheated of 

the fruits.^ This class continued restless ; but they lacked 

leadership, and, in ordinary times, their claims secured little 

attention. At first, disappointed in politics, the workingmen 

turned to trade-unions, and sought to get better wages and 

shorter hours by strikes. As in America at the same time, an 

attempt was made at a nation-wide organization, — which 

in 1834 enrolled nearly a million members. But employers 

1 There is an admirable treatment in Rose's Rise of Democracy, ch. ii. 



444 THE VICTORIAN AGE 

united, dismissed all union workmen, and, aided by the conser- 
vative courts, stamped out the movement. A strike by a union 
the courts held a "conspiracy." Under medieval common-law 
practice they transported six labor leaders to the Australian penal 
settlements, and for many years the labor movement lay crushed. 
Then the Radicals turned again to politics. There were 
two marked periods of agitation at intervals of nearly twenty 
years, — just before 1848 and again before 1867. The earlier 
is the famous Chartist movement. Even before the First Re- 
form Bill, there had been an extensive agitation for a more radi- 
cal change, and the extremists had fixed upon six points to 
struggle for: (1) manhood suffrage, (2) equal electoral districts, 
(3) abolition of all property qualification for membership in 
Parliament, (4) payment of members, (5) the ballot, and (6) an- 
nual elections. In 1837 the Radicals renewed their agitation, 
and these "Six Points" were embodied in the Charter they de- 
manded. Excitement grew for years,^ and in the forties, many 
Chartists looked forward to rebellion. Men drilled and armed ; 
and the government was terrified into taking stringent precau- 
tions. 

Five of the six points have since become law, and the 
unimportant sixth point is no longer asked for. But to 
the prosperous English Liberal of 1840 these Chartist de- 
mands seemed to promise revolution and anarchy. One 
reverend writer opposed the demands by such arguments 
as these : " What would you gain by universal suffrage ? 
. . . All workmen would become politicians . . . [and] 
spend their time ... in what would only increase their 
poverty. Vote by ballot would be nothing but a law for 
rogues and knaves, nothing but a cloak for . . . hypoc- 
ris3'. • • • The Chartist doctrine of equality is diametrically 
opposed to nature and to the word of God." (For equally 
absurd opposition in America to manhood suffrage, twenty 
years earlier, see West's American People, pp. 376-377, 477.) 

* Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke is a powerful story of this period. 



THE CHARTISTS 445 

"Forty-eight" was the critical year. The reform was set 
back by the EngHsh revulsion against the violent revolution 
going on upon the continent. The Chartists adopted a resolu- 
tion, "All labor shall cease till the people's Charter becomes 
the law of the land." This was the first attempt at a national 
strike for political purposes. But the plan for monster demon- 
strations, with great petitions and processions, fizzled out, and 
the "year of revolutions" saw no disturbance in England that 
called for more than a few extra policemen. 

The next agitation took its rise from the suffering of the The Second 
unemployed while the American Civil War cut off the supply g^^^^^g-. 
of cotton for English factories, and it was strengthened by the England a 
hard-won victory of the democratic North in that war over the ofi'nocracy 
aristocratic South. This time no one dreamed of force. The 
agitators could count safely on winning, through the rivalry of 
the two political parties. The Liberals, under Russell, intro- 
duced a reform measure, but lost power because they did not 
go far enough. Then, said Disraeli, cynically, " If the country 
is bound to have reform, we might as well give it to them" — 
and stay in office; and the "Second Reform Bill" was finally 
passed in 1867 by a Conservative ministry. 

Lord Derby was prime minister ; but, as he sat in the Lords, 
it was necessary to intrust some Commoner with special 
leadership in the lower House. This task fell upon Disraeli, 
who became (as is usually the case under such conditions) 
the real genius of the administration. 

All householders (owners or renters) and all lodgers loho paid 
ten pounds a year for their rooms, became voters. Thus this 
bill gave the franchise to the artisan class, raising the number of 
voters to over three million, or to something over half the adult 
male population. John Stuart Mill aroused no little amuse- 
ment by proposing votes for women. 

The unskilled laborers in town and country, and the male 
house-servants, still had no votes ; but England had taken a 
tremendous step toward democracy. This victory of 1867, 



446 



THE VICTORIAN AGE 



Other 
reforms 
in politics 



like that of 1832, was followed by a period of sweeping legis- 
lation for social reforms, — mainly in Gladstone's Liberal 
ministry, 1868-1874 (p. 450). Then, after a Conservative 
ministry, led b^' Disraeli and chiefly concerned with foreign 
matters (p. 458), Gladstone took office again, and the "Third 
Reform Bill" (1884) in large measure enfranchised the Unskilled 
laborer and the servant class. 

This raised the electorate to over six millions, and (except 
for unmarried sons, without property, living in the father's 
family, and for laborers living in very cheap houses) it gave 
votes to practically all self-supporting men. The next year. 
Parliament did away with the chief remaining inequalities in 
representation by dividing England into parliamentary districts, 
like our congressional districts. 

It is well to fix clearly the nature of these three Reform 
Bills. The First (1832) enfranchised the middle class 
(merchants, shopkeepers, professional men, etc., besides 
the gentry, freeholders, and members of borough corpora- 
tions, who had the franchise before). The Second (1867) 
enfranchised the artisans in the towns. The Third (1884) 
enfranchised unskilled laborers, leaving less than one 
seAenth the adult males without a vote. 

Four other reforms in this period made English politics clean 
and honest. 

In 1870 the secret ballot was introduced. The form adopted 
was the excellent one known as the Australian ballot, from 
its use in Victoria. Most of the States of our Union have 
since then adopted the same model. 

Between 1855 and 1870, the civil service was thoroughly re- 
formed. In earlier years, public offices had been given to reward 
political partisans, in as disgraceful a degree as ever marked 
American politics. But since 1870, appointments have always 
been made after competitive examinations, and there has been 
no removal of appointed officials for party reasons. England had 
completed this great reform before the United States began it. 



ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT 447 

In ISO'S Parliament turned over to the courts the trial of contested 
elections. In Stuart times, when the kings sometimes attempted 
to control the composition of Parliament, it was needful for 
the Commons themselves to have the right to decide between 
two men who claimed the same seat. That need had passed 
away; and the decision of contested elections in Parliament, 
as in our legislatures still, was often made by a strict "party 
vote," without regard to the merits of the opposing claims. 
In transferring these cases to the courts, England led the way 
in a reform which other free countries will in time adopt. 

Bribery in elections, direct and also indirect, was effectively 
checked by the "Corrupt Practices Prevention Act" of 18S3, drawn 
along lines more recently adopted in the United States. 

The extension of the franchise in the three great "Reform" Local 
bills applied only to parliamentary elections. But local gov- fefor^™^" 
ernment also called for reform. It had been highly aristocratic. 
It was not centralized, as in France ; but each local unit was 
in the hands of the local aristocracy. 

The two rural units, the counties and the parishes, were alto- The need 
gether controlled by the country gentry, without even the form 
of an election. (1) The crown appointed a Board of Justices 
of the Peace, for life, from the most important gentlemen of each 
county, and this Board managed all matters of county government, 
acting both as judges and as county commissioners. (2) Each 
parish was ruled by a vestry of twelve gentlemen who formed a close 
corporation, holding office for life, and themselves filling vacancies. 

In the towns, the government was usually vested in a mayor 
and a council, who were virtually self-elected for life. This town 
rule had long been indescribably corrupt. The "corporation," 
as the government was called, never represented any large part 
of the inhabitants. The members spent public funds as they 
pleased, — largely in salaries to themselves, and in entertain- 
ments and state dinners, — and they rented public property to 
one another at nominal prices, while all the pressing needs of 
the great and growing city populations were ignored. 



448 



THE VICTORIAN AGE 



The corrupt town government was the first part of local 
government to be reformed. Earl Grey's ministry in 1833 ap- 
pointed "a commission of inquiry"; and, after the report of 
the commission in 1835, Lord Russell introduced a Municipal 
Reform Bill. The measure provided that 183 boroughs (in- 
dicated by name) should each have a municipal council elected by 
all who paid local taxes. The Lords went wild with dismay at 
this " gigantic innovation," and by votes of 6 to 1, they amended 
nearly every clause in the bill so as to make it worthless. At 
this time, O'Connell, the Irish agitator, started a movement 
to abolish the House of Lords. "It is impossible," said he, 
" that it should last, — that such a set of stupid, ignorant, 
half-mad fops and coxcombs should continue so to lord it." 
The Commons refused the amendments ; and after a four 
months' struggle the Lords yielded. From time to time, through 
the century, new towns were added to the list, as need arose, 
and finally, in 1882, it was provided that any town might adopt 
this form of government for itself. 

The municipal reform of 1835 was immediate and success- 
ful. English town government ever since has been honest, 
efficient, and enlightened, — a model to all other democratic 
countries, and a full half-century ahead of America. The 
best citizens serve in the town councils. The appointed officials, 
like the city engineer, city health officer, and so on, are men of 
high professional standing, who serve virtually for life and are 
never appointed or removed for political purposes. The 
government costs less and gives more than in American cities, 
and the scandals that disgrace our city governments are un- 
known. The form of government is that known as the " Council 
plan" : the mayor is hardly more than a presiding officer. He 
is elected by the council, and he has no veto. The cities own 
their own water and lighting and street car systems to a much 
greater degree than in America. 

In the rural units, reform did not come until 1888 and 1894. 
In the counties and parishes, the gentry rule was honest, but 
it broke down in the nineteenth century, under the burden of 



ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT 449 

new duties. Finally, in 1888, the Conservative ministry of 
Lord Salisbury passed the County Council Bill, providing for 
the election of a Council for each county by all local taxpayers. 
A new interest in local affairs followed, and the elected Councils 
began to change the face of England by their energetic govern- 
ment. Six years later, the last ministry of Gladstone extended 
this movement by the still more important Parish Councils Bill. 

These two laws have made local government in the rural umts Parish 
thoroughly democratic. The elements are four. (1) The parish pigtnct 
has a primary assembly {parish meeting). (2) Parishes with councils 
more than three hundred people have also an elective Parish 
Council. (3) Larger subdivisions of the county, known as 
Districts, have elective District Councils. And (4) at the 
top is the elective County Council. The powers of all these 
local bodies are very great. From the beginning of these re- 
forms, women have had the right to vote for local Councils and 
to sit in them, on the same terms as men. 

London had not been included in the previous municipal The London 
reform acts, but in 1888 it was made an " administrative county." council 
Since 1888 the representative County Council of London, ruling 
six million people, has been one of the most interesting govern- 
ing bodies in the world. 

The sixteenth century in England had seen a neio ab- 
solutism rise upon the ruins of the old feudalism and the 
old church. The struggle of the seventeenth century had 
resulted in replacing this absolutism with representative 
government highly aristocratic in character. Then, by 
natural decay, this had hardened into the narrow oligarchy 
of the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century saw 
the victory of democracy — and by peaceful evolution, with- 
out bloody revolution. 

For Further Reading. — On the Second and Third Bills, interest- 
ing treatments are to be found in Hazen, Rose, McCarthy's History of 
Our Own Times, .and in the younger McCarthy's England under Glad- 
stone. Beard's English Historians, 566-581 and 582-593, is admirable. 
On the Chartists, Rose, 84-146 ; Hazen, 446-450. 



CHAPTER XXX 



SOCIAL REFORM IN THE VICTORIAN AGE 

The thirties were a period of humanitarian agitation, as well 
as of democratic advance. In England, Charles Dickens wrote 
his moving stories of the abuses in the courts, the schools, the 
factories, the shops. Carlylc thundered against injustice, in 
Chartism and in Past and Present; Mrs. Browning pleaded for 
the abused children in touching poems (p. 378). Public men, 
like Wilherj'orce, Romilly, and Shaftesbury, urged reform in 
Parliament. 

So in America, the thirties saw the beginning of the 
"woman's rights" movement, including demands for 
coeducation, equal property rights with men, and the 
right to vote. Massachusetts founded the first public 
hospital for the insane. Special schools soon appeared for 
the blind and the deaf. The temperance movement and 
the abolition movement got fairly luider way. 

After carrying the Reform Bill of 1832, Earl Grey dissolved 
Parliament. The new Parliament, chosen by the enlarged 
citizen-body, contained a huge majority for the Liberals. 
Earl Grey's ministry remained in office for three years more, — 
years packed with social reforms. It freed the Negro slaves 
in the West India colonies, jxtying the colonists for their loss} 
It began to free the hardly less miserable "white slaves" of the 
English factory towns, by a new era of factory legislation 
(p. 451). It freed the Irish peasants from the obligation of pay- 
ing tithes to support the Episcopalian clergy, whom they hated. 

• Special Report : Wilberforce, and his work for emancipation. 
450 



SOCIAL REFORM IN ENGLAND 451 

It swept away some more excesses of the absurd and bloody 
criminal code (p. 430). It abolished the pillory and the whip- 
ping post, and began to reform the foul" and inhuman conditions 
in the prisons. It began the reform of local government 
(p. 447) ; and it made a first step toward public education, by 
a national grant of £20,000 a year to church schools. 

In 1839, after strenuous struggles, this grant was in- 
creased to £.30,000. A member of the Ministry, in argu- 
ing for that pitiful increase, reminded Parliament that it 
had just voted £70,000, without a murmur, to build new 
stables of the Queen. 

The most important legislation of the century was the labor The Factory 
and factory Irf/islation. Gradually Englishmen awakened to ^^^ °^ 
the ugly fact that the new factory system was ruining, not 
only the souls, but also the bodies of lumdreds of thousands 
of women and chihh'en, so as to threaten national degeneracy. 
In 1833, among the first acts of the "Reformed parliament," 
Lord Ashley (p. 377) secured a factory law limiting the work of 
children (under thirteen years) to forty-eight hours a week, 
and that of "young people" (from thirteen to eighteen years) 
to sixty-nine hours a week (or twelve hours on five da.ys and 
nine hours on Saturdays). Some provision was made also 
for educating children and for a few holidays ; and the employ- 
ment of children under nine (!) was strictly' forbidden. 

The bill was fought bitterly by most of the manufacturers, 
who urged (1) that it would oblige them to reduce wages and 
raise prices ; (2) the hypocritical plea that it took from the 
workingman his "freedom of contract," or right to sell his 
labor as he chose ; and (3) that *t would cost England her in- 
dustrial leadership among nations, and drive capital away to 
countries where there was no such mischievous legislation. 
But public opinion had at last been aroused, and the bill became 
law. Fortunately, it provided for salaried " factory inspectors " ; 
and these officers, after many prosecutions, compelled the em- 
ployers to obey it. 



452 



THE VICTORIAN AGE 



In 1847 a still greater factory law limited the labor of women 
and "young persons" (between 14 and 10) to ten hours a day, 
with only half-time for "children" (between 9 and 14) and 
with provision for schooling in the vacant half of the day. 
Indirectly, this law fixed a limit upon the hours of men also, 
because, after the women and children had all left a factory, 
it was not profitable to keep the machinery going. Thus ten 
hours became the factory ivorking-day many years before this 
goal was reached generally in America. 

The legislation of 1833 applied only to factories for weaving 
goods. But in 1840, a parliamentary commission made public 
the horrible condition of women and children in the coal mines, 
— stunted, crippled, misshapen wretches, living in brutal in- 
decency. Children began work underground at five or six 
years of age, and rarely saw daylight. Girls and women worked 
almost naked among the men. The working hours were from 
twelve to fourteen a day ; and in the wet underground pas- 
sages, two or three feet high, women were compelled to crawl 
back and forth on hands and knees, hauling great carts of 
coal by chains fastened to their waists. A law at once forbade 
underground labor by women and children. 

The principles of factory legislation were soon extended 
to other lines of manufactures. Of the long series of later 
acts, the most important are Asquith's Factory Act of 1895 (which, 
along with other wholesome provisions, prohibits the em- 
ploy Taent of any child under eleven years of age),^ and the great 
Act of 1901, which revised and advanced the factory legislation 
of the preceding century. Since 1901, no child under 12 can 
be employed at all in any sort of factory or workshop ; and for 
employees between 12 and 16, a physician must certify that 
there is no danger of physical injury from the employment. 
Night work for women and children is strictly forbidden. 

* For Further Reading. — Gibbin's Industrial History of England, 175- 
176, and Cheyney's Industrial and Social History, 224-262. Vivid statements 
are given also in Justin McCarthy's Epoch of Reform, History of Our 
Own Times, and England in the Nineteenth Century, and in Lecky's History 
of England, VI, 219-225. 



CORN LAWS AND FREE TRADE 



453 




These acts have been accompanied by many provisions to 
secure good lighting and ventilation in factories and work- 
shops, and to prevent accidents from machinery, by compelling 
the employer to fence it in with every possible care. In 18S0 
an Employers' Liability Act made it easy for a workman to 
secure compensation for any injury for which he was not him- 
self to blame ; and in 1897 a still more generous Workman's 
Compensation Act secured such compensation for the workmen 
by a simple process without lawsuits. These acts have been 
copied in the last few years by progressive 
States in our Union. 

Lord Grey retired in 1834 ; but his Liberal 
successors began the modern liberal policy 
toward the English colonies by a new " Gov- 
ernment Act" for Canada in 1839 (p. 470), 
and introduced penny postage in 1840. Pre- 
vious to this, the charge on letters had been The First Adhe- 
very high, sometimes several shillings, and s^mp ^1840^ 
had varied according to distance and to the The design was 
size and shape of the letter. It had involved tot^TO.'^^"^^'^' 
cumbrous calculations for each letter, and the 
amount had been collected in cash by the carriers. When the 
change was suggested, the postal authorities protested earnestly 
and sincerely — as conservative officials still protest against 
every new reform — declaring that under the proposed plan the 
carriers would never be able to handle the letters, or that it 
would cost ruinous sums to do so. Rarely indeed has a simple 
change done more for the well-being of the poorer classes. 

The Conservative ministry of Peel (1841-1846) was marked 
by the abolition of the Corn Laws. Those laws had put an 
excessively high tariff on imported grain. Their aim was to 
encourage the raising of foodstuffs in England, so as to make 
sure of a home supply; and during the Napoleonic war this 
policy perhaps had been justifiable. The money profits, 
however, had always gone mainly to the landlords, who enacted 
the laws in Parliament and who raised rents high enough to 



Workman's 
Compensa- 
tion Act 



Other 
reforms 
before 
1840 



The old 
" Corn 
Laws " 



454 



THE VICTORIAN AGE 



confiscate the benefits whieli the high prices might otherwise 
have brought to the farmer. After the rapid growth in popu- 
lation had made it impossible for England to produce enough 
food for her people anyway, the landlords' monopoly of bread- 
stuffs had become an intolerable burden upon the starving 
multitudes. 

The needless misery among this class finally aroused great 
moral indignation. In 1838 the Anti-Corn-Law League was 
organized by Richard Cohdcn and John Bright, and for years 
it carried on a wonderful campaign of education through the 
press and by means of great public meetings. The manu- 
facturing capitalists were made to see that the Corn Laws 
taxed them, indirectly, for the benefit of the landlords — since 
to enable their workmen to live, they had to pay higher wages 
than would otherwise have been necessary. And so the selfish 
interests of this influential manufacturing class were thrown to 
the side of this particular reform. 

Finally, in 184(), a huge calamity was added to the same side 
of the scales. This was the Irish Famine. The population of 
Ireland had been increasing rapidly, until it amounted to over 
eight millions. The greater part were poor peasants, living in 
misery, with the potato for almost their sole food. Suddenly, 
in 1846, in a night, came a blight that ruined the crop for the 
year ; and, despite generous gifts of food from all the world, 
two million people died of starvation.^ 

The government in England had already been considering a 
reform of the Corn Laws, and this terrible event in Ireland 
forced it to act. As John Bright afterward said for the re- 
formers, "Famine itself, against whom we fought, took up arms 
in our behalf." Feel decided to sweep away the tax and to let 
food in free ; and, despite bitter opposition from the landlords 
of his own party, the reform was adopted. 

One interesting result of the bitter feeling of the Tory 

landlords was the passing of the factory act of 1847 (p. 452). 

1 A million more emigrated to America in the next four years (1847-1850). 
This was the first large immigration of Catholic Irish to this country. 



FREE TRADE ADOPTED 



455 



That much needed reform was vehemently opposetl hy man- 
vfacturing Liberals, like John Bright, who believed it would 
ruin English industry. But the landlord Tories, who had 
just been beaten by Bright on the Corn Laws, grimly took 
their revenge by forcing this other reform upon the manu- 
facturing capitalists. The whole story shows that neither 
division of the capitalist class could see any needs of the 
working class that conflicted with their own unjust profits. 




The Pakuament BuildiN'.s at Westminster, Londun : completed in 1S52, 
after the "Old Parliament Buildings" had been destroyed by fire, in 
1834. Westminster Abbey is visible in the distance. 



Peel was soon overthrown by a party revolt, but the Liberals Free trade 

took up the work and carried it farther. They abolished one ^'iop*^". 

\ ^ _ *' as a policy 

protective tariff after another, until, by 1852, England had be- 
come a "free trade" country. 

This policy was never afterward seriously questioned in 
England (whose manufactures and commerce have prospered 
so marvelously under it) until 1903. For some years preceding 
that date, to be sure, some of the Conservative party talked of 
a policy of "fair trade," or a system of retaliatory tariffs against 
countries whose tariffs shut out British manufactures ; and 
finally, in 1903, Joseph Chamberlain, a member of the Con- 



456 



THE VICTORIAN AGE 



servative cabinet, declared that the time had come for England 
to adopt a policy of that kind and at the same time to secure 
closer trade relations with her colonies. In 1909 and 1910 the 
Conservative party made their campaigns on this issue — in 
opposition to the radical internal tax reform of Lloyd George 
(p. 478) ; but so far (1919), they have not won the nation. 

In 1851, mainly through the influence of Prince Albert, came 
the great Crystal Palace Exhibition. This was the first of 
many international exhibits of industries and arts, with the 
idea of bringing the peoples of the world to understand one 
another better and to profit by one another's progress in art 
and industry. It was hailed by Queen Victoria, too hopefully, 
as a guarantee of lasting peace. Six million visitors attended 
the exhibit ; and conservative Englishmen deplored the flooding 
of England with foreign immorality ! 



For some twenty years after the Corn-Law reform, England 
saw little legal reform aside from the extensions of free trade 
and of the factory legislation already mentioned. 

Then, after the enfranchisement of the artisan class by the 
Reform Bill of 1867, came Gladstone's great reform adminis- 
tration (1868-1874), which rivals in importance that of Earl 
Grey in the thirties. In 1870 it established alongside the old 
private and parochial schools a new system of public schools, 
or, as the English call them, Board Schools.^ It abolished pur- 
chase of office in the army, and completed the civil service re- 
form (p. 446). It introduced the ballot (p. 446). It opened 
English universities to others than the members of the Church 

> So called because they are managed by elected Boards. The term 
"public school" in England had been appropriated by the great secondary 
schools, like Rugby and Eton, though there is, of course, no public control 
over them. 

These Board Schools have revolutionized the English working-class. 
About the middle of the nineteenth century, more than a third of the newly 
married couples had to sign their names in the marriage registers with their 
"marks." In 1903 only two per cent were unable to write their names. 
This fact is full of promise for those European lands which are still struggling 
with gross illiteracy. 



REFORMS IN IRELAND 457 

of England. It passed further factory laws. It definitely 
repealed the old conspiracy laws, under which labor-unions 
had been persecuted, and it gave legal rights to such unions, 
permitting them to incorporate and secure the rights at law of 
an individual. It also arranged honorably the Alabama Arbi- 
tration Treaty with the United States. It "disendowed" and 
"disestablished" the English Church in Ireland, and carried 
through important land reforms for Ireland (p. 463). 

Since the days of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, the Epis- 
copal Church had held the ancient property of the Catholic 
Church in Ireland. The Celtic Irish population, however, 
clung with amazing fidelity to the old faith, so that in 1835 a 
parliamentary inquiry failed to find one Protestant (except 
the Episcopalian clergyman) in any one of 150 parishes. 

After Gladstone's "disestablishment," the Episcopal 
Church in Ireland was separated from political power, and 
was upon an equal footing legally with any other church ; 
but the " disendowment " was only partial. The church 
lost all income from taxes (tithes), and much of its property 
was taken from it to create funds for the Catholics and 
Presbyterians in the island ; but it kept its buildings and 
enough other property to leave it still very rich. All this, 
which to one party seemed only a partial remedying of a 
huge ancient injustice toward a whole people, seemed to 
another party a new and unpardonable injustice ; and many 
good churchmen never forgave Gladstone for his " act of 
robbery." 

But Gladstone at this time would not go far enough to satisfy The labor 
the Irish ; and, despite the trade-union law, he offended the ^'"""f 
labor party by a new law regarding strikes. This law recognized Gladstone 
the right of a union to strike, but made criminal any show of 
intimidation. It forbade strikers to revile those who remained 
at work; and it is reported that under the law seven women 
were sent to prison for crying "Bah!" at a workman who had 
deserted the strikers. The ministry lost more and more of 



458 



THE VICTORIAN AGE 



Disraeli's 
imperialistic 
administra- 
tion, 
1874-1880 



Gladstone's 
second 
ministry, 
1880-1885 



its support, and finally Gladstone "dissolved." In the election, 
the labor unions voted for the Conservatives ; and that party 
secured a large majority, for the first time since 1832. 

Then followed Disraeli's administration {1874-1880) with its 
"dazzling foreign •policy.'' The only reform at home was the 
repeal of the law against strikes. Gladstone's ministry had 
been exceedingly peaceful and honorable in dealing with foreign 
nations. Disraeli, leader of the new ministry, characterized 
this attitude as weak, and said that it had "compromised the 
honor" of England. He adopted an aggressive foreign policy, 
and tried to excite English patriotism by " jingo "^ utterances 
and conduct. By act of Parliament, Queen Victoria was de- 
clared "Empress of India"; the Boers of the Transvaal were 
incited to war, so that England might seize their lands ; and 
in 1878, when Russia conquered Turkey (p. 593) and seemed 
about to exclude the Turks from Europe, Disraeli interfered. 
He got together a Congress of the Powers at Berlin, and saved 
enough of European Turkey to shut Russia off from the Mediter- 
ranean. This was England's greatest sin in her foreign rela- 
tions during the century ; and though quickly repented of by 
the people (below), it bore bitter fruit forty years later — 
furnishing, as it did, in part, the chance for the opening of the 
World War. 

Gladstone came forth from retirement to carry on a great 
campaign against this policy of supporting the Turk in his 
mastery over the Christian populations of southeastern Europe. 
His appeal to the moral sense of the English people was suc- 
cessful ; and in the election of 1880 the Liberals secured an 
overwhelming majority. The evil work of the Congress of 
Berlin could not now be undone ; but Gladstone's new ministry 
passed the Third Reform Bill and it also completed the puri- 
fication of English politics, by adopting the law against " Corrupt 



' This word comes from a popular music hall song of 1878 : 
"We don't want to fight ; but, by jingo, if we do 
We've got the men, we've got the ships, 
We've got the money, too." 



REFORMS IN IRELAND 459 

Practices" (p. 447). Soon, however, this Liberal ministry 
found itself occupied with Irish questions, about which EngHsh 
politics were to revolve for the next fifteen years. Some ex- 
planation of Irish affairs must precede further survey of English 
matters. 

For Further Reading. — Details on particular topics can be found 
ill McCarthy's Epoch of Reform (for the years 1830 to 1850), History of 
Our Own Times (1837-1880), and in the younger McCarthy's England 
under Gladstone. Briefer accounts for the whole period are given in 
Hazen's Europe Since 1815, in McCarthy's England in the Nineteenth 
Century, and in Rose's Rise of Democracy. See also Carlton Hayes' 
Modern Europe, II. 



CHAPTER XXXI 



ENGLAND AND THE IRISH QUESTION 

In the history of Ireland . . . we may trace with singular clearness the 
pert'erting and degrading influences of great legislative injustices. — Lecky. 

The English people proper are Saxon-Norman mixed with 
Celtic blood ; the Welsh, Highland Scots, and Irish are Celts. 
In the larger of the British Isles, the English, Welsh, and Scots 
live at peace ; but for centuries the Irish in the smaller island 
have been restless under English rule. 

Ireland has been an unfortunate and misgoverned land. In 
the seventh and eighth centuries, she had begun to show bril- 
liant promise (p. . 99) ; but this early civilization vanished in 
the wars of the Danish invasions, which for three hundred 
years inflicted upon Ireland all the woes suffered by England 
for the generation before Alfred the Great. 

Thus Henry II of England found the island sunk in misery 
and barbarism and torn by incessant tribal strife. Unhappily 
for both English and Irish, Henry's conquest (p. 164) was left 
incomplete ; and war, anarchy, and misgovernment filled three 
centuries more, down to the time of Henry VIII. Sir John 
Davis, a poet-historian and statesman of Elizabeth's time, 
wrote, " If it had been practised in Hell as it has been in Ireland, 
it had long since destroyed the very kingdom of Beelzebub." 

Henry VIII and Elizabeth completed the subjugation of 
the island ; but now the English and Irish civilizations had 
grown far apart, and the two people could not easily mingle. 
Moreover, the English had become Protestant, and the differ- 
ence in religion added a tremendous difficulty. There was 
real danger that Catholic Ireland might join Spain against 
Protestant England (p. 164) ; and so the mutual hate and fear 

460 



IRELAND BEFORE 1800 461 

between Irish and English grew more and more intense. About 
1600, the government began to try to make Ireland English by 
crushing out the native language and customs and religion, 
and by reducing the native population to mere tillers of the 
soil for their conquerors. On trumped-up charges, with every 
imaginable form of force and fraud, the lands of even the 
loyal Irish gentry were confiscated to furnish estates for Eng- 
lish adventurers ; and a war of extermination was waged agginst 
all who remained in arms. 

Just before the Civil War in England, the goaded Irish Cromwell 
rose in fierce rebellion. A little later the merciless hand of ^miam III 
Cromwell restored order with a cruelty which makes his name 
a by-word in Ireland to-day. Toward the close of the century, 
the Irish sided with James II against William III, but were 
defeated at the Battle of the Boyne (1690). The Treaty of 
Limerick (1691), however, promised them the enjoyment of 
their own religion and certain other privileges ; but these 
promises were treacherously broken by the English settlers, 
who controlled the parHament of the island, so that Limerick is 
known as "the City of the Broken Treaty." 

During the eighteenth century the fate of Ireland was wretched Ireland 

beyond description. In Ulster, the northern province, the ^^ *^® 

1 • • 1 "t-i !• 1 T-ii 1 • eighteenth 

population was mamly English. Elsewhere six sevenths of century 

the land belonged to English landlords, most of whom lived in 

England and spent their rents there. Those who stayed in 

Ireland made up the ruling class of the island. Six sevenths 

of the people were Catholic Irish. A few of these, especially 

in the west, were country gentlemen ; a considerable number 

more were tenant farmers ; but the great bulk were a starving 

peasantry, working the land for Saxon landlords and living 

in mud hovels, — each with an acre or two of ground about it. 

Farmers and laborers alike were "tenants at will." That is, "Rack 

they could be evicted at the landlord's word. Population was '^^^^ " 

so crowded that there was always sharp competition to get 

farms and cottages, and so the landlord could make his own 

terms. If the tenant improved the buildings or drained the land, 



462 



ENGLAND AND THE IRISH 



The 

Rebellion 
and the 
' Union " 



he commonl}' found at once that he had to pa}'^ more rent, 
so that he himself got no profit from his extra labor. This 
system of "rack rent" made the peasantry reckless and lazy; 
and the fact that the law of their masters was used only to 
oppress them, trained them to hate and break the law. 

In 1798 the Irish rebelled. They were promised aid by the 
French Directory ; but the help did not come in time, and the 
rising was put down with horrible cioielty. 

A change in the government followed. For several centuries, 
there had been a separate parliament for Ireland, controlled 
by the English settlers ; but after 1798 England consolidated the 
government of the two islands. The Act of Union (1800) abolished 
the Irish legislature, and gave Ireland one hundred representa- 
tives in the English Parliament. Ireland became subject di- 
rectly to English rule and English officials. 

These were the conditions at the opening of the nineteenth 
century. In 1803 a brilliant young Irishman, Robert Emmet, 
tried to organize a rebellion for Irish independence ; but the 
effort failed miserably, and Emmet died on the scaffold. 



Young 
Ireland 



And the 
Fenians 



The struggle for the repeal of the Union began in 1830, in the 
first English Parliament in which Catholics were allowed to sit 
(p. 430). Forty of the Irish delegation were pledged to work 
for repeal, and they were led by the dauntless and powerful 
Daniel O'Connell; but the Irish famine of 1846 checked the 
agitation; and just afterward O'Connell died. Then a band of 
hot-headed young men tried conspiracy, and the fruitless .and 
rather farcical rebellion of Young Ireland marked the year 1848. 

The next twenty years saw no progress. In 1866 came an- 
other rebellion, — the Fenian Conspiracy, organized by Irish of- 
ficers who had served in the American Civil War. The danger 
did not become serious, but it convinced many liberal English- 
men that something must be done for Ireland, and Gladstone's 
reform ministry of 1868-1874 took up the task. 

Then there opened a new period in Irish history. The Episco- 
palian church in Ireland (p. 457) was disestablished, and this was 



THE HOME RULE QUESTION 463 

followed in 1870 by the first of a long series of important reforms Gladstone 

of the land laws. Two things were attempted: (1) in case of f°^ ^ 
... Ireland, 

eviction, it was ordered that the landlord must pay for any im- 1868-1885 

provements the tenant had made; and (2) the government 

arranged to loan money on long time, and at low interest, to 

the tenants, so that they might buy their little patches of land. 

In 1881 and 1885 Gladstone's ministries extended and improved 

these laws until the peasants began to be true landowners, with 

a chance to develop new habits of thrift and industry. 

Meantime, in 1870, a group of Irish members of Parliament Reform and 
had begun a neiv agitation for "Home Rule,'' and soon after- •^°^''"°° 
ward the same leaders organized the "Land League," to try 
to fix rents, as labor unions sometimes try to fix wages. For 
the time, the Liberal ministries frowned on both these move- 
ments, and prosecuted the Land League sternly on the ground 
that it encouraged crime against landlords. At the same time, 
indeed, that the government was passing beneficent land laws, 
it was also passing "Coercion Acts" to establish martial law 
in Ireland. The Coercion Acts were resisted by the Irish 
members with a violence never before seen in an English Parlia- 
ment, and Irish conspirators outside made various attempts 
to wreck the English government buildings with dynamite and 
to assassinate English officials. 

But suddenly Gladstone made a change of front. In the new Gladstone 

Parliament of 1884, eighty-six of Ireland's hundred and five ^^^^^^ed to 

Home 
members were Home Rulers." They began to block all Rule 

legislation ; and Gladstone could go on only by securing their 
alliance. Moreover, he had become convinced that the only way 
to govern Ireland toas to govern it in cooperation with the Irish, 
not in opposition to them. So in 1886 he adopted the " Home- 
Rule" plan and introduced a bill to restore a separate legisla- 
ture to Ireland. 

The Conservatives declared that this policy meant disunion Gladstone's 
and ruin to the Empire, and in this belief they were joined by retirement 
many of the old Liberals, who took the name of Liberal Union- 
ists. The Home Rule Bill was defeated ; but it made the issue 



464 ENGLAND AND THE IRISH 

in the next election a few years later, and in 1893 Gladstone 
tried to carry another such measure. This time, the Commons 
passed the bill, but the Lords threw it out. The bill differed 
• in important particulars from the one before considered. More- 
over the majority for it in Parliament was narrow and plamly 
due only to the Irish vote. Thus Gladstone felt that the na- 
tion would not support him in any attempt to pass the bill by 
swamping the Lords with new peers. At this moment his age 
compelled him to retire from parliamentary life, and the Liberals, 
left for a time without a fit leader, went out of power. 
Further The Conservatives and Unionists then tried to conciliate 

la-^d Ireland by extending the policy of government loans to the 

''*'*'°' peasantry to an almost unlimited extent, though formerly 

they had railed at such acts as robbery and socialism ; and they 
granted a kind of local "home rule," by establishing elective 
County Councils like those in England. The Irish members 
kept up agitation in Parliament, but for a long time even the 
Liberals seemed to have lost interest in Irish Home Rule ; and 
indeed it was plain that nothing could be done until after "the 
mending or ending" of the House of Lords. This matter was 
soon forced to the front in -connection with EngUsh questions 
(pp. 478 ff.). 

For Further Reading. — Hazen's Europe Since 1815, 471-594; 
Johnston and Spencer's Ireland's Story. 



British 
Empire 



CHAPTER XXXII 

ENGLISH COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES 

After many years of wandering I have come to the conclusion that the 
mightiest factor in the civilization of the world is the imperial policy of 
England. — Admiral George Dewey (1899). 

The English navy is presumably the most potent instrumentality for 
peace in the world. — Theodore Roosevelt (December, 1918). 

Of all peoples the English have been the most successful in The 
colonizing new lands and in ruling semi-barbarous races. Eng- 
land began her colonial expansion on the North Atlantic coast 
of America and in the West Indies, in the seventeenth century. 
In 1776 she lost her most important colonies on the continent 
of North America ; but the hundred years of war w'ith France 
(1689-1815) gave her a new and vaster empire (pp. 328-329). 
In the nineteenth century this empire was tremendously ^- 
panded again, — mainly by peaceful settlement and daring 
exploration. In 1914 the British Empire covered nearly four- 
teen million square miles, or four times the area of the United 
States and nearly a fourth the land area of the globe ; and its 
population numbered four hundred millions, or about one 
fourth of the whole human race. Forty millions of this number 
dwelt in the British Isles, and about fifteen million more of 
English descent lived in self-governing colonies, — mainly in 
Canada, Australia, and South Africa. The other seven eighths 
of the vast population of the Empire are of non-European blood, 
and for the most part they are subject peoples. 

The outlying possessions are of two kinds : (1) those of con- 
tinental importance in themselves, such as Canada, India, 
Egypt, Australia, New 'Zealand, South Africa, and the West 
Indian and South American colonies ; and (2) coaling stations 

465 



466 



ENGLISH COLONIES 



The self- 
governing 
colonies 



Crown 
colonies 



India 



and naval posts commanding the routes to these possessions, 
such as Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Ceylon, St. Helena, Trinidad, 
and scores more. 

Some colonies are completely self-governing, with no depend- 
ence upon England except in form. This is true of Canada, 
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. These colonies 
are said to have " respojisible governments." The English min- 
istry appoints a Governor General, whose powers resemble those 
of the figurehead monarch in England. But the people of the 
colony elect the local legislature ; and the real executive is the local 
ministry, "responsible" to the legislature, as the ministry in 
England is to Parliament. 

In another group of colonies, the governors and officials, sent 
out from England, really control the whole government. This 
class of "crown colonies" comprises most of the naval posts, 
like Gibraltar, and also those colonies lying in the torrid zone, 
where the population is mainly non-European. 

India is a huge crown colony. Until 1857 it remained under 
the control of the East India Company (p. 244), but in that 
year came the Sepoy muiiny, — a rising of native soldiers, — 
and when order had been restored, India was annexed to the 
British crown. The English ministry appoints a Viceroy and a 
Council, and these authorities name the subordinate officials 
for the subdivisions of the vast country. In the smaller dis- 
tricts the English officials are assisted by native officers, and to 
some extent by elected councils of natives. Outside the terri- 
tory ruled directly by England there are also nearly a thousand 
native principalities, large and small, where the governments 
are really directed by resident English "agents." 

The English are making a notable attempt to introduce self- 
government and to get the natives to care for it. Towns are 
invited to elect municipal councils and to take charge of their 
streets and drainage and other matters of local welfare. The 
officers of the old East India Company were sometimes rapacious 
robbers, oppressing the natives to fill their own and the Com- 
pany's coffers ; but since India became a crown colony, English 



INDIA AND EGYPT 



467 



rule, for the most part, has been wise^ firm, and just, and has 
aimed unselfishly at the good of the natives. India pays no 
taxes into the English treasury ; indeed, she is a drain on that 
treasury. Her trade is a chief source of British wealth, but, 




Copyright by Underwood and Underwood. 

Railway Station at Bombay. The purpose of the building, of course, is 
due to English civilization, but the architecture is native Indian. 



as with all England's possessions,^ that trade is open to the 
merchants of all coimtries on terms of full equality with English 
merchants. The petty, constant -wars, which formerly were 

• Some of the self-governing colonies, against English advice, have 
enacted tariff laws giving an advantage to the trade of the Empire ("pref- 
erential tariffs"). 



468 ENGLISH COLONIES 

alwaj'^s wasting the land, have been wholly done away with, 
and the terrible famines, which from time immemorial have 
desolated it at intervals, have become fewer, and on the 
whole, less serious. As a result, population has increased 
rapidly, — over fifty per cent in a century, — and to-day more 
than three hundred million people dwell in India. ^ England has 
built railroads, and developed cotton industries. Cotton mills 
give a Western appearance to parts of that ancient Oriental land. 
India has 800 newspapers (printed in twenty different lan- 
guages) ; and 6,000,000 students are being educated in schools 
of many grades. 

Early in the World War the Germans tried to stir up native 
rebellion in India, mainly through Hindoos living in the United 
States. The flat failure of such plots, and the enthusiastic 
aid voluntarily given to England, indicate more attachment 
to English rule than had been supposed to exist. Still it remains 
true that the Hindoos cannot understand Western civilization, 
and they do not like it. Moreover, in the great war, England 
failed to throw herself generously upon Indian loyalty : she re- 
fused commissions to Hindoos, and lost a great chance to bind 
that people to her more closely. 

Egypt Egypt in name was one of the tributary states of Turkey until 

1914. In fact, however, it had been independent for most of 
the nineteenth century, until, in 1881, a new master stepped in. 
The government had borrowed recklessly and spent wastefuUy, 
and the land was misgoverned and oppressed by crushing taxa- 
tion. Then, in 1879, England and France jointly intervened 
to secure payment of debts due from the Egyptian Khedive 
to English and French capitalists. In 1881 came a native 
Egyptian rising against this foreign control. France withdrew. 
England stayed, restored order, and "occupied" the country. 

England had a special motive for staying. The Suez 
Canal was opened in 1869. In 1875 the English government 
(Disraeli's administration) bought from the Egyptian 

• Read Kipling's William the Conqueror. 



INDIA AND EGYPT 469 

government its share of the Canal stock, and the English 
intervention in Egypt was largely to protect this property. 

After that time, Egypt was really an English protectorate. 
The Khedive and all the machinery of the old government 
remained unchanged ; but an English agent was always present 
at the court "to offer advice," and the Khedive understood that 
this advice must be followed. Many Englishmen entered the 
service of the Egyptian government, too, and all such officers 
looked to the English agent as their real head. 

When England put down anarchy in 1881, the ministry de- 
clared that the occupancy would be only temporary. This 
statement of Gladstone's ministry was made in good faith, 
and was in keeping with other parts of Gladstone's modest 
foreign policy. None the less, it has long been certain that no 
English government will willingly give up Egypt ; and in 1914, 
during the great European war, England announced a full 
protectorate. The possession of that country, together with 
the mastery of the Suez Canal, insures the route to India ; 
and Egypt has been made a base of operation, also, from which 
English rule has been extended into the Soudan (map facing 
p. 553) far toward Central Africa. 

To Egypt itself, English rule has been an unmixed good. The 
system of taxation has been reformed, so that it is less burden- 
some and more productive. The irrigation works have been 
revived and improved, so that Egypt is richer, more populous, 
and with a more prosperous peasantry, than ever before. At 
the same time there has grown up a respectable party among 
the Egyptian people who believe that their country is now quite 
fit to stand alone — and that it has a right to try. This ele- 
ment made an earnest but vain attempt to get a hearing before 
the Peace Congress of 1919. 

One of the most important features of the nineteenth century 
was the development of self-government in the Anglo-Saxon 
colonies of England. The loss of the American colonies had 



470 



ENGLISH COLONIES 



The 

winoing 
of self-gov- 
ernment in 
Canada 



Australia 
begins 
as a 
convict 
camp 



taught a lesson, and the next colony to show violent dissatis- 
faction had all its wishes granted. 

This event took place in Canada in 1837. There were then 
only two " provinces " there. These thinly settled districts lay 
along the St. Lawrence, and were known as Upper and Lower 
Canada. They had been governed for many years much as 
Massachusetts or Virginia was governed before 1776. There 
had been a growing dissatisfaction because the legislatures did 
not have a more complete control over the finances and over 
the executive ; and the accession of the girl-queen in England 
in 1837 was the signal for a rising. The rebellion was stamped 
out quickly ; but an English commissioner, sent over to inves- 
tigate, recommended that the demands of the conquered rebels shoidd 
he granted. Parliament adopted this recommendation. In 1839 
the two provinces were united and were granted "responsible" 
ministries. England, in name, retains a veto upon Canadian 
legislation ; but it has never been used. In 1850 a like plan for 
self-government was granted to the Australian colonies, in 1852 
to New Zealand, and in 1872 to Cape Colony in Africa. 

The growth of the Australian colonies is a romantic story, 
worthy of a book to itself. England's original claim rested on 
landings by Captain Cook in his second voyage to the Pacific 
in 1769 ; but no settlement was attempted for almost a century. 
English colonization went instead altogether to the nearer 
American possessions. From the beginning of the American 
colonization, England had transported many convicts thither. 
The American Revolution put a stop to that practice. And 
so in 1787 England sent a shipload of convicts to the coast of 
"New South Wales." Sydney, so established, was the first 
English colony in Australia. For fifty years New South Wales 
remained a penal settlement (p. 444) ; but, after their terms of 
punishment, many ex-convicts became steady farniers, and the 
English government began to induce other settlers to "go out" 
by free grants of land and of farming implements. By 1821 
the colony had a population of 40,000, and soon it became the 
main sheep-raising region in the world. 



SELF-GOVERNMENT AND DEMOCRACY 471 

By natural expansion, familiar to students of American his- English 
tory, this colony of New South Wales sent out offshoots in f^Tustralia 
five other colonies, which, with the mother colony, covered the 
continental island : West Australia (1829), South Australia 
(1834), Tasmania (1835), Victoria (1851), and Queensland 
(1859). The black side of this splendid story was the cruel 
extinction of the native race, — a people of a much lower grade 
than the North American Indian. 

The Australian commonwealths have been pioneers in demo- Democratic 
cratic progress. Before 1900, every man and every woman in 4'^°^'^^?^ ^^ 
each state had the right to vote. The government in each 
state owned the railroads. The "Australian ballot" and the 
Torrens system of land transfer came from these colonies ; and 
a powerful Labor party in each has secured other radical re- 
forms — which are seen better still perhaps in New Zealand. 

"New Zealand" comprises a group of islands 1200 miles east New 

of Australia. Settled and governed for a time from New South Zealand 
ixT 1 • 1 1 • T • • expenments 

Wales, it became a separate colony m 1840. In 191 1 it contained in industrial 

more than a million English-speaking inhabitants. For many <lemocracy 
years it has been perhaps the most democratic state in the 
world. Women secured the right to vote in 1893. Large 
estates have been broken up into small holdings by heavy 
taxation. A state "Farmers' Loan Bank" set the example 
followed in part by the United States in 1913. The most 
advanced factory laws and "social insurance" laws in the 
world have been found in New Zealand since 1893 and 1898; 
and there have been tried, since 1895, exceedingly interesting 
experiments in compulsory arbitration of labor disputes, with 
Boards of "Conciliation" to settle such differences if possible 
in their early stages. 

South Africa was long an unsatisfactory part of the Em- South 
pire for Englishmen to contemplate. England seized Cape *r"^' 
Colony from the Dutch during the Napoleonic wars (p. 328). 
English settlers came in rapidly, but in 1834 a portion of the 
old Dutch colonists "trekked" (moved with families, ox- 
wagons, herds, and flocks) north into the wilderness, and set 



472 ENGLISH COLONIES 

up an independent government in Natal. A few years later the 
British annexed Natal, and the Dutch again trekked into what 
is known as the Orange Free State, and, in 1848, once more 
into the country beyond the Vaal River. These "Transvaal" 
Dutch became involved in serious difficulties with the native 
Blacks, whom they enslaved and treated brutally, and a 
native rising threatened to exterminate all Europeans in South 
Africa. Under Disraeli (p. 458) England interposed, put down 
the Zulus, and extended her authority once more over the 
Boer states. 

In 1880 the Boers rebelled, and with their magnificent 
marksmanship destroyed a British force at the Battle of Majuba 
Hill. Gladstone adopted the view that the Boers had been 
wrongfully deprived of their independence, and, without 
attempting to avenge Majuba Hill, he magnanimously with- 
drew the British claims and left to the Boers of the Transvaal a 
virtual independence, under British "protection." The exact 
relations between the two countries, however, were not well 
defined, and much ground was left for future disputes. 
The Boer Soon afterward, gold was discovered in the Transvaal, and 

^^^ English and other foreigners rushed in, so as to outnumber the 

Boer citizens. The Boers, who were simple farmers, unable 
themselves to develop the country, had at first invited immi- 
grants, but soon became jealous of their growing numbers and 
refused them all political rights. England attempted to secure 
better treatment for her citizens among these new settlers, 
and, under Salisbury's Conservative and Imperialistic ministry, 
was bent upon reasserting her authority in general. The Boers 
saw that England had determined to force them to a policy 
which would put the government of the little land into the 
hands of these foreign immigrants ("Outlanders"), and they 
declared war (1899). The Orange Free State joined the Trans- 
vaal, and the little republics carried on a marvelous and heroic 
struggle. They were finally beaten, of course; and England 
adopted a generous poUcy toward the conquered, making large 
gifts of money to restock their ruined farms, and granting liberal 



COLONIAL FEDERATIONS 



473 



self-government, without any discrimination against her recent 
foes. When England became involved in the general European 
war of 1914, some of the Boers rose once more; but on the 
whole that people seem now content with the new and liberal 
English rule. 

During the last half-century the English-speaking colonies 
have made one more great advance in free government. At 




The Canadian Parliament Building at Ottawa 



the time of the American Revolution, "Canada" meant merely 
the St. Lawrence settlements. In the nineteenth century these 
expanded westward, forming a splendid band of states ^ spanning 
the continent. Then, in 1867, the separate colonies of this 
British North America organized themselves into the Dominio7i 
of Canada. This is a federal state, similar to the United States, 
composed now of eight members, with a number of other " Ter- 
ritories." The union has a two-house legislature, with a re- 



English 
colonies 
organizea 
in great 
federal 
common- 
wealths 



1 Read Mrs. Humphry Ward's Lady Merton, Colonist, to get the spirit 
of the Canada of the West. 



474 ENGLISH COLONIES 

sponsible ministry; and each of the eight states has its own 
local legislature and ministry. 

A similar union of the six Australian colonies into one federal 

state was agitated for many years ; and, after two federal 

conventions and a popular vote, it was finally established on 

the first day of the twentieth century. Finally, in 1909, the four 

South African states were combined into a similar federation, 

with the name, "The Union of South Africa." Thus three new 

English nations were formed, — each at its birth large enough 

to command respect among the nations of the world (each one 

double the size, of the United States when its independence was 

achieved). Together, these three republics to-day (1919) 

contain an English-speaking population of some fifteen million 

souls, and their rapid growth contains vast promise for the 

future. 

Ties The Boer War and the great European struggle of 1914 

e ween showed that there was a strong tie between England and her 

and her self-governing colonies. x\ustralia, New Zealand, and Canada 

CO omes ^^j made liberal gifts of troops and money to assist the mother 

country against the Boers; and in the World War they fought 

and sacrificed as splendidly as they could have done if they had 

been directly attacked by Germany. 

The bond which holds together the Anglo-Saxon parts of 
the Empire is, however, almost wholly one of feeling. Cer- 
tainly, if either Canada or Australia wished to set up as an in- 
dependent nation, England would not dream of trying to hold 
it. Indeed from about 1850 to nearly 1900 the English Liberals 
were usually inclined to a "Little England" policy, ready to 
welcome any attempt of a colony to set up for itself. About 
1880, however, an imperial patriotism began to show itself 
in English politics — born, perhaps, of closer communication 
by steam and electricity. This was fostered by such writers 
as Kipling ; and, after 1900, the growing rivalry with Germany, 
and the consciousness of a common danger, drew mother state 
and daughter colonies into closer relations. The English 
statesman to-day who should invite Canada to drop out of 



IMPERIAL FEDERATION 475 

the Empire, or who should provoke her into doing so, would be 
universally in England regarded as a traitor to his race. 

There is no present danger of separation. The colonists have 
had no recent cause to complain, except in one respect : namely, 
they have had no voice in deciding the policy of the Empire to- 
ward foreign nations. This evil was largely offset by the fact that 
the English navy afforded protection to the Canadian and Austra- 
lian trade, so that these great and wealthy countries were practi- 
cally freed from all burden of military and naval defense. Still, 
the situation was not altogether satisfactory. A Canadian may 
properly wish a voice in the policy of the Empire; that is, he 
may wish to be a citizen in as full a degree as if he lived in Eng- 
land : and England may properly think that Canada ought to 
contribute something tO imperial defense. It has been proposed 
to meet both these wants by some form of Imperial Federation. 

This means that the different parts of the Empire would be 
left their present parliaments for local matters, but that the 
management of matters that concern the Empire as a whole 
would be turned over to a new parliament made up of repre- 
sentatives in fit proportion from England and her colonies. If 
such a federation can be carried out successfully, it will be the 
greatest triumph ever yet achieved by federal government and 
a new boon to civilization, equal perhaps to any political device 
yet developed by the English-speaking race. Meantime, so far 
as the old grievance of the colonies is concerned, the evil has 
been fully removed by the recognition of their delegates in the 
Peace Congress of 1919 and in the League of Nations. 

For Further Reading. — Hazen, 523-545. A good longer account 
may be found in Woodward's Expansion of the British Empire. On 
recent developments, see Year Books and Almanacs. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 



RECENT REFORM IN ENGLAND: 
POVERTY ' 



TVAR UPON 



The Liberal 
program of 
1892 



Land 

Reform in 
England 



I hope that great advance will he made during this generation toward 
the time when poverty, with its wretchedness and squalor, will be as remote 
from the people of this country as are the wolves which once infested its 
forests. — Lloyd George, in 1909. 

Before the election of 1892, the Liberals had adopted a plat- 
form calling for Irish Home Rule (p. 463), for the disestablish- 
ment of the Episcopal church in Wales (where nine tenths 
of the people are dissenters), for a greater degree of local self- 
government, for sweeping reform in taxation, for old-age 
pensions, and — as a necessary step toward these things — for 
the "mending or ending" of the House of Lords. Twenty 
years carried this program to fulfillment. 

How the Lords thwarted Gladstone's ministry of '92-'95 on 
the Home Rule matter has been told (p. 464). That ministry 
did pass the great Parish Councils act (p. 449), making England 
a complete democracy in local government. Gladstone's last 
speech in Parliament (sixty -one years after his first speech in 
that body) was in defense of that bill against attempted interfer- 
ence by the Lords. Said he, in solemn prophecy, — "The issue 
which is raised between an assembly, elected by more than 
6,000,000 voters, and a small hereditary body, is a controversy 
which, once raised, must go forward to an issue. " If health 
had let the "Grand Old Man" continue his . leadership, the 
Lords would have had to meet then an attack upon their veto. 

The Parish Councils Act helped along another vital reform. 
For many years the Liberal party had declared for making the 
peasantry once more the owners of farm lands, and the Con- 
servatives had finally come to favor the measure. In 1890, 

476 * 



ASQUITH AND LLOYD GEORGE 477 

1200 men (out of a population of 32,000,000) owned a fourth 
of the soil of England, and only one twenty-fourth of the popula- 
tion owned any land at all. A series of Allotment acts (1883, 
1887, 1892) had tried to remedy this great evil, but with little 
success. After 1894, however, the democratic Parish Councils 
began to buy land (and even to condemn it and take it at a 
forced sale), and then turn it over in small holdings to farm 
laborers, either on long leases or for purchase on easy terms. 
Slowly but surely the English people hegayi again to become the 
otcners of England, and the movement has been tremendously in- 
creased by the War of 1914-1918. 

After Gladstone's retirevient, the Conservatives held power The Con- 
for ten years (1896-1905). They carried forward some social servative 
reforms which they had once bitterly opposed — such as factory 1896-1905 
reform and Irish-land reform — but they also placed the Eng- 
lish Board schools under the control of the established church. 
These schools are attended mainly by the children of the work- 
ing people. These are almost wholly dissenters. When the 
Liberals returned to power they gave their first efforts to repeal 
this law. 

And by 1905 the Liberals had found a group of new leaders. Return of 

who still (1919) remain great figures in English public life, JJ^ owe^**^ 

— Mr. Asquith, prime minister from 1908 to 1915 ; Mr. Lloyd 

George, his leading finance minister and a radical reformer 

in taxation, and afterward England's great war dictator; and 

Mr. Winston Churchill. The ministry which contained these 

men was supported by the largest parliamentary majority 

which had been seen since the First Reform Bill in 1832. The „., , 

, . . . . • Fifty Labor 

same election sent fifty Labor representatives to parliament, several members in 

of them avowed Socialists. ^9oo 

The new ministry completed earlier legislation by a compre- 
hensive Workingman's Compensation act (p. 453) ; but the 
first attempt to take the schools from the control of the church 
was successful only in part — owing to the veto of the Lords. 
That House, too, ventured to challenge conflict by vetoing a 
bill that tried to take away the "plural votes" of rich men. 



478 ENGLAND, 1906-1914 

The English law permitted a man to vote in as many 
counties as he held landed property. One clause in the 
Liberal platform of 1892 had been, "One man, one vote" ; 
and, in like manner, the defense of this ancient privilege of 
property had become a matter of intense feeling with the 
English Conservatives. Since elections were held all on one 
day, however, the actual number of plural votes was not 
very large ; but they remained a hateful class distinction. 

The ministry wisely refused the challenge of the Lords to 
dissolve and appeal to the country on any one of these issues. 
Instead, they let the hereditary House pile up the account 
against it, until Englishmen should be ready to strike decisively. 
The final clash came over the budget. 

Lloyd Each year the ministry presents a statement of the expenses 

George's j^ intends to incur, and of the taxes it proposes to lay where- 
with to meet those expenses. This statement is the budget. 
In April of 1909 Lloyd George presented a budget which hon- 
estly horrified Conservatives, and which was the most social- 
istic step ever taken up to that time by a great government. 
Leading provisions were as follows : — 

A graduated income tax took a large part of all incomes 
over $25,000, and hore more heavily on unearned incomes 
than on those that are earned. 

A graduated inheritance tax took larger proportions than 
formerly of inheritances, — fifteen per cent of bequests 
over £1,000,000. 

A much higher tax was placed on land that paid rents and 
royalties to landlords than on land worked by its owners. 

Finally, and most important of all, there was a provision 
that when any man sold land for more than it had cost, he 
must pay one fifth the gain into the national treasury. 
This is known as a tax on the "unearned increment," and 
is a move toward the doctrine of the Single-taxers, who 
wish the community to take all such unearned increment. 



budget of 
1909 



LLOYD GEORGE'S BUDGET OF 1909 



479 



The Conservatives attacked this budget violently as revolu- 
tionary. Especially they denounced the distinction regarding 
unearned incomes as an "invidious assault on the rights of 
property." Moreover, they claimed that the treasury did not 
need such vast income as was proposed. As to this last point, 
Lloyd George had declared that he was proposing a "war 
budget," — for "waging 
implacable war against 
poverty." (See also the 
theme sentence at the 
head of this chapter.) 
The other accusations were 
answered forcibly and di- 
rectly by Mr. Winston 
Churchill, who frankly 
declared a man's right to 
property dependent upon 
the way in which he 
obtained it: "Formerly," 
said he, " the only question 
by the tax-gatherer was 
'How much have you 
got?' . . . To-day ... we 
ask also, ' How did you get 
it ? Did you earn it, or has 
it been left you by others ? 
Was it gained by processes 
which are beneficial to the community, or by processes which 
have done no good to any one, but only harm? . . . Was 
it derived by active reproductive processes, or merely by 
squatting on a piece of land till enterprise and labor had to buy 
you out ? . . . How did you get it ? ' That is the new question 
which is vibrating through the land." 

The budget passed the Commons, but the Lords threw it The Lords 
out by a vote of five to one. For many centuries the upper ^^^^^^^ 
House had not dared to interfere with a "money bill" (p. Ill), 




Lloyd George in 1909. 
graph. 



■ From a photo- 



480 



ENGLAND, 1906-1914 



The Lords 
lose the veto 



Now was the time for the reformers to strike. In the Commons 
Mr. Asquith promptly moved a resohition " That the action of 
the Lords is a breach of the Constitution and a usurpation of the 
rights of the Commons." This resolution passed by a vote of 
three to one. 

Then the ministry dissolved, and appealed to the country 
for support in restricting the power of the Lords. The elec- 
tion (January, 1910) gave the Liberals again a good working 
majority. The ministry announced at once that the budget 
would be again presented, and, after it, some proposal for 
change of the House of Lords. If the Lords stopped either 
measure, the ministry would again dissolve, and appeal to the 
nation. 

The Lords now allowed the revolutionary budget to become law. 
The Liberals, however, pressed their attack on the veto power 
of the Lords. The death of King Edward (May, 1910) caused 
some delay ; but in November the matter came again to a 
head. The Lords threw out the Commons' bill against them. 
As they had promised, the ministry dissolved. The new elec- 
tion (the second referendum within twelve months) gave them 
slight gains ; and the new House of Commons enthusiastically 
passed a second bill to take away the Lords' veto. When the 
bill was sent to the other House, Mr. Asquith announced that 
five hundred new peers, if necessary, would be created to secure 
its passage. 

Then the helpless Lords passed the laic which reduced their 
House to a nonentity. Under this new law (August, 1911) any 
money bill passed by the Commons becomes law within a 
month, whether the Lords pass it or not ; and the Speaker of 
the Commons decides whether a bill is or is not a money bill. 
Any other bill passed by the Commons at three successive sessions 
becomes law, in spite of a veto by the Lords^ That is, the 
Lords' former veto is taken away wholly for a large and important 
class of bills, and is made 07ily a su.spensive veto, good for two 
years, for all other legislation. At last, the hereditary part of par- 
liament is made strictly subordinate to the representative branch. 



SO(.^IAL INSURANCE 481 

Even this is not satisfactory to the Radicals. There is 
plainly little use for an "upper House" at all, if it has so 
little power. Accordingly many proposals are being made 
to do away with hereditary Lords altogether in favor of 
some new "second House." 

The Liberals then hastened to push through their program Social 
of social reform. (1) In 1908 they had already passed an Old-age i^'^s^^'-ance. 
Pensions act giving $1.25 a week to every person over seventy 
years old with a yearly income of less than £160. And on the 
first day of the next year, when the law took effect, more than 
half a miUion elderly men and women drew, from the nearest 
post offices, their first jveekly pensions — not as a dole of charity 
but as due reward in payment for a long life of useful service to 
the commonweal. (2) An even more important move in the "war 
against poverty" was now made, in the National Insurance 
act of 1911. This act compelled every worker with a yearly 
income of less than $800 to insure against sickness, and offered 
tempting inducements for such insurance to workers with higher 
incomes. The benefits include weekly payments during sickness, 
free medical care in health, and free treatment in state hospitals 
when sick. (3) More radical still w^as a provision insuring 
workers in certain trades against unemployment. A workman out 
of work, without fault of his own, was promised a weekly sum for a 
term of fifteen weeks, and free transportation to a place where the 
free labor-bureaus may find him new work. Half the cost of all 
this insurance (but not of the old-age pensions) was taken from 
the wages of the workers ; the other half was divided between 
the employers and the national treasury. 

Thus England's social legislation included comprehensive 
factory acts, workingmen's compensation for injuries received 
in their work, insurance against sickness and against loss of 
time, and old-age pensions. By a radical system of taxation, 
the money to wage this war against poverty was taken especially 
from the wealthy, and particularhf from that class of wealthy 
men who received their incomes loithout rendering service to society 



482 



ENGLAND, 1906-1914 



in return. Nearly all civilized countries are moving along these 
same lines ; but no other had then gone quite so far. 

Political reform, too, was pushed forivard. In 1911 the maxi- 
mum duration of Parliaments was limited to five years, instead 
of seven, and salaries ($2000 a year) were provided for mem- 
bers of Parliament. 

This makes it more possible for poor men to sit in Parliament. 
For some years, labor unions had been in the practice of paying 
salaries to Labor representatives in the Commons ; but the 
English courts had just declared that the unions had no right 
to use money for that purpose. The new law destroyed the 
force of this Tory judicial decision, and established one more of 
the "points" of the old Chartists. Moreover, the same Parlia- 
ment finally passed "Welsh disestablishment" and Irish Home 
Ride. The Lords vetoed both measures in 1912 and in 1913, 
but in 1914 they became law over the veto (p. 480). In Prot- 
estant Ulster, however, the Conservative "Unionists" threat- 
ened rebellion to prevent Home Rule going into effect. When, 
a few weeks later, the World War began, the leaders in this pro- 
gram of violence gave it up ; but in return the ministry secured 
an act from Parliament postponing the date when Home Rule 
and Welsh disestablishment should go into operation. 



This delay, natural and probably necessary, was still 
one of the most unhappy results of the great war. The 
old hatreds seemed about to be wiped out. Previous re- 
forms by the English Parliaments had abolished the Eng- 
lish church in Ireland and had tried honestly to undo the 
injustice of centuries of English landlordism there by mak- 
ing the Irish peasants again the owners of their own land. 
A final act of justice seemed about to be performed, which 
would have left further Irish reform in Irish hands. 

The delay produced a resentment as bitter as it was un- 
reasonable. The Irish, in spite of vast numbers of noble 
exceptions, failed shamefully to do their full part in the 
war for democracy, spending their energies instead (some- 



VOTES FOR WOMEN" 



483 



times in plots with German autocracy) to set up an inde- 
pendent Irish nation. And this, although plainly the 
attempt would have meant at that critical moment civil 
war between Ulster and the rest of Ireland — a war in 
which England must have intervened. On the other hand, 
England, fighting Germany for her life, used unwise severity 
in putting down one of these plots, where treason was clear, 
by the execution of the leaders. A righteous settlement 
has been made terribly hard. • 

In 1912 the ministry introduced the "Fourth Parliamentary 
Reform Bill," extending the suffrage to all grown men and 
establishing the principle "one man, one vote." This bill was 
withdrawn, later, because of complications with the "equal 
suffrage" movement, which demands some mention here. 

Until 1870, women in England (and in most European lands) 
had fewer rights than in America. To the law, a married 
woman was a minor. Her husband was her guardian, — almost 
her master. He might even beat her if she disobeyed him. 
Before 1900, property rights had gradually been granted women, 
though not so fully as in progressive American States. In 1870, 
when the English " Board schools " (p. 456) were created, women 
were given the right to vote for the Boards, and to serve upon 
them. In 1888 and 1894 they were given the franchise for 
the County Councils and Parish Councils (p. 449), subject 
to the same tax-paying restrictions that applied to men. 

Then in 1893 the colony of New Zealand gave women full 
political rights, and in 1894 South Australia did so. In 1901 
the new federal Australian Commonwealth granted women the 
franchise for the federal parliament. This was quickly fol- 
lowed by like action in the remaining states of the federation. 

The action of these progressive English-speaking colonies ^ 

reacted upon Old England ; and there the question was taking 

on a new character. In 1905 numbers of English women ex- 

• And also the progress of equal suffrage in the United States, and in other 
European countries. See pp. 540, 544 ; also West's American People, pp. 
689-690. 



" Votes 
Women " 
the suffra 
gettes 



for 



484 ENGLAND, 1906-1914 

changed peaceful agitation for violence, in the campaign for the 
ballot. They made noisy and threatening demonstrations before 
the homes of members of the ministry ; they broke windows ; they 
invaded the House of Commons in its sittings ; and at last they 
began even to destroy mail boxes and burn empty buildings. 

The leaders in this movement were Mrs. Sylvia Pankhurst 
and her daughter Christobel. The purpose was to center atten- 
tion on the demand "Votes for women," since, the leaders be- 
lieved, the demand was sure to be granted if only people could 
be kept thinking about it. When members of this party of 
violence were sent to jail, they resorted to a "starvation 
strike," until the government felt compelled to release them 
— after trying for a time "forceful feeding." 

Lloyd George was an open advocate of equal suffrage ; but 
the ministry as a whole was unwilling to put its other reform pro- 
gram in peril by making woman suffrage " a government meas- 
ure." When (1912) Mr. Asquith introduced the proposed parlia- 
mentary reform (p. 483), he promised that the ministry would 
accept an amendment for woman suffrage if the House should 
pass one. This did not content the women agitators. Violence 
increased ; and the sympathies of the Liberals were so divided 
that the government finally withdrew the bill altogether, as it 
did another in 1914. When the great war began, in«the fall of 
that year, Mrs. Pankhurst called upon her followers to drop 
all violence while the country was in peril ; and the devoted ser- 
vices of wovien to the country throughout the war removed the last 
opposition to equal suffrage. In 1918 the "Fourth Reform Bill" 
became law, giving one vote to each man above twenty-one, 
and to each woman thirty years of age. This advanced age 
requirement was adopted as a temporary measure, while Eng- 
land's manhood power was so terribly reduced, so that the new 
Parliament should not be controlled too overwhelmingly by 
women's votes. 

For Further Reading. — Ogg, Social Progress in Contemporary 
Europe, 265-279; Cross, History of England, ch. Ivii; Larson, Short 
History of England, 617-639. 



PART IX 

WESTERN EUROPE FROM THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN TO 
THE WORLD WAR, 1871 1914 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

FRANCE : CLOSE OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN TWAR 

The news of Sedan (p. 422) reached Paris, September 3, 1870. The Gov- 
The city had been kept in ignorance of the previous disasters Na^nal° 
to French arms. Now it went mad with dismay and terror. Defense 
The next day a mob invaded the hall where the legislature 
was already debating the deposition of Napoleon. So strength- 
ened, a few Radical deputies tumultuously proclaimed the 
"Third Republic," and set up. a provisional Government of 
National Defense. 

This government tried at first to secure an honorable peace 
with Germany, protesting, truly, that the French people had 
not willed the war. But when Prussia made it plain that she 
intended to punish France by taking large slices of her territory, 
the conflict entered upon a new stage and became a heroic 
struggle for defense. 

For this second stage of the Franco-Prussian War, there are Second 
two main features : the gallant resistance of Paris through a the^^ar 
four months' siege, and a magnificent, patriotic uprising in the 
provinces. Gamhetta, a leading member of the Government of 
Defense, escaped from Paris, in a balloon,' to organize the move- 
ment in the provinces. For a time success seemed possible. 
Exhausted France raised army after army, and amazed the 
world by her tremendous exertions. But unhappily Gambetta, 
instead of abandoning Paris to its fate and prolonging resist- 
ance by retiring slowly before the German advance, wear- 

' This was long before the day of aeroplanes. 
485 



486 



FRANCE AFTER 1870 



The 

National 
Assembly 
of 1871 



Bismarck 
dictates 
harsh terms 



The " Com- 
mune of 
Paris," 1871 



ing out the enemy in a hostile country, thought it necessary to 
hurl his half-trained forces upon the German lines, in the vain 
effort to relieve Paris. In the end it became apparent that the 
iron grasp of the German armies, with their perfect organization, 
could not be broken. The great population of Paris began to 
suffer the horrors of famine ; the dogs and rats had been eaten ; 
and on January 28 the city surrendered. 

There was no government in France with any real authority 
to make peace; and so an armistice was arranged, to permit the 
election of a National Assembly by manhood suffrage. Even 
the autocratic Bismarck had insisted upon this, since he meant 
that the whole French nation should give its consent to the 
terms he meant to impose. The Assembly met toward the 
close of February, 1871, and created a provisional government 
by electing Thiers " Head of the Executive Power of the French 
RepubUc." 

The terms of peace were hard. The Prussians demanded 
Alsace and a part of Lorraine, with the great fortresses of Bel- 
fort, Metz, and Strassburg, and a huge war indemnity of one 
and a fifth billion dollars (some four times the cost of the war 
to Germany). Day after day the aged Thiers wrestled in 
pleading argument with Bismarck, the grim German Chancellor, 
to secure better terms. He did finally secure a reduction of 
the indemnity to one billion, and the retention of Belfort — 
much against the will of the Prussian war lords. In return for 
these concessions, however, the Prussians humiliated Paris by 
marching German troops in triumphal progress into the capital. 

Stern and ruthless as Bismarck was, he was too far- 
seeing to like these extreme measures. He knew they 
must arouse a deathless hostility in France. But the vic- 
torious military party was now too strong for him, he tells 
us, and he felt obliged to yield to its demands. 

The National Assembly had hardly arranged peace with 
the foreign foe, before it had to meet a terrible rebellion at home. 
During the siege all the adult males of Paris had been armed 



THE COMMUNE OP 1871 487 

as National Guards. When the siege was over, every one who 
could get away from the distressed city did temporarily re- 
move, including one hundred and fifty thousand of the wealth- 
ier National Guards. Paris was left in control of the radical 
element. This element, too, kept its arms and its military or- 
ganization ; and it now set up a government of its own by 
choosing a large " Central Committee." 

The National Assembly had established itself, not at Paris, 
but at Versailles. The radical Republicans of Paris suspected 
it of wishing to restore the monarchy. In fact, a large major- 
ity of the members ivere Monarchists, as events were soon to 
prove (p. 490). The Assembly, too, had put in command of the 
army a man who had assisted in Napoleon's coup d'eiaf. Paris 
suspected him of preparing another such move in favor of 
some of the royalist pretenders. Moreover, the Assembly had 
aggrieved the poorer classes of Paris : it had insisted upon the 
immediate payment of rents and other debts incurred during 
the siege ; and it did away in large measure with the pay of 
the National Guard, which, since the surrender, had been a 
kind of poor-relief. In addition to all this, the Reds and 
Socialists still remembered bitterly the cruel middle-class ven- 
geance of '48 (p. 391). 

For two weeks Paris and Versailles faced each other like 
hostile camps. The National Guards collected a large num- 
ber of cannon in one of the forts of Paris. March 18 the Assem- 
bly sent a detachment of troops to secure these guns. A 
mob gathered to resist them. The Assembly's troops refused 
to fire, and looked on while two of their officers were seized 
and shot by the rebels. 

For a time,' there was still hope that a conflict might be 
averted. Paris decided to hold an election for a "General 
Council," and it was possible that the moderate element might 
win. Two hundred thousand votes were cast. The Radicals 
and Revolutionists elected sixty-four members, to about twenty 
Moderates. Then the Radical Council, acting with the " Cen- 
tral Committee," set up the Commune, and adopted the red flag. 



488 FRANCE AFTER 1870 

In 1848 the Paris Radicals had learned that the country 
districts of France were overwhelmingly opposed to Socialism 
and to ""Red Republicanism." So this new Paris Commune 
advocated extreme local self-government for all France, As 
Hanotaux, a prominent French historian, puts it, "The men of 
the Commune wished to make a Switzerland of France." If 
each city and village could become an almost independent 
state, then the Radicals hoped to carry out their socialistic 
policy in at least Paris and other large cities. 

The supporters of this program wished the central govern- 
ment of France to be merely a loose federation of independent 
"communes"; and so they called themselves "Federals." 
They are properly described also as " Communards " ; but' the 
name "Communist," which is often applied to them, is likely to 
give a false impression. That latter name is generally used 
only for those who oppose private property. Many of the 
Communards were also Communists, but probably the majority 
of them were not. 

The supporters of the Commune included the greater part 
of the citizens remaining in Paris. But France, though still 
bleeding from invasion, refused to be dismembered by internal 
revolt. The excited middle class felt, moreover, that the 
institution of property itself was at stake, and they confounded 
all Communards together as criminals seeking to overthrow 
society. Little chance was given to show what the Commune 
would have done, if left to itself. There is an interesting parallel 
between their program and that of the Russian Bolshevists in 
1918. Like attempts to set up Communes took place at Mar- 
seilles, Toulouse, Narbonne, and Lyons ; but they came to 
little, and the civil war was confined to Paris. 

April 2 the Versailles Assembly attacked Paris with the 
regular troops that had now returned from captivity in Ger- 
many. The struggle lasted two months and was utterly fero- 
cious. The Assembly refused to treat the Communards as regu- 
lar combatants, and shot down all prisoners. In retaliation, 
the Commune seized several hundred hostages from the better 



THE FALL OF THE COMMUNE 489 

classes left in Paris, declaring that it would execute three of 
them for each of its soldiers shot after surrender. In fact, 
however, it did not carry out this threat ; and the hostages 
were not harmed until the Commune had been overthrown. 
Then, in the final disorder, an unauthorized mob did put sixty- 
three of them to death, — the venerable Archbishop of Paris 
among them. 

The bombardment of Paris by the Versailles government 
was far more destructive than that by the Germans had been. 
Finally the troops forced their way into the city, which was 
already in flames in many sections. For eight days more, 
desperate fighting went on in the streets, before the rebellion 
was put down. 

The Commune had arranged mines in the sewers to blow up 
certain portions of the streets where the invaders were expected 
to enter ; and, during its brief rule, it had cast down the tri- 
umphal column of Napoleon I (p. 316), on the ground that 
such glorification of wars of conquest was unworthy a civilized 
people. These facts, together with some destruction by the 
mob after the Commune had ceased to control the city, gave 
rise to the report that the Commune tried to destroy Paris 
when it could no longer retain possession. No such intention 
is needed to explain an enormous destruction under the condi- 
tions of the war. The world has never ceased to lament the 
loss to the art collections of the city. 

Court-martial executions of large batches of prisoners con- Another 
tinned for many months, and some thirteen thousand sur- 
vivors were condemned to transportation, before the rage of 
the victorious middle class was sated. There are few darker 
stains on the page of history than the cruelty and brutality 
of this middle-class vengeance. 

For Further Reading. — Hazen's Europe Since 1815, 330-336, 
or Andrews' Modern Europe, II, 343-349. Also Robinson and Beard's 
Readings, II, 211»-212. 



White 
Terror 



CHAPTER XXXV 



ESTABLISHMENT OF THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC, 

1871 1879 

The Assembly had been elected simply with a view to mak- 
ing peace. In choosing it, men had thought of nothing else. 
It was limited by no constitution, and it had no definite term of 
office. Certainly, it had not been commissioned to make a con- 
stitution or to continue to rule indefinitely; but it did both 
these things. 

At the election, people had chosen conservative candidates, 
because they wanted men who could be counted upon not to 
renew the war rashly. The majority of the members proved to 
be Monarchists ; and they failed to set up a king, only because 
they were divided into three rival groups, — Imperialists (Bona- 
partists), Orleanists (supporters of the Count of Paris, grandson 
of Louis Philippe), and Legitimists (adherents of the Count 
of Chambord, grandson of Charles X). These three factions 
agreed in believing that a new election would increase the 
strength of the Republicans ; and so for five years they resisted 
all demands of the Republican members for dissolution. 

Now that peace had been made, and the rebellion crushed, 
the Assembly felt compelled to replace the " provisional govern- 
ment" by some more regular form. Accordingly it made Thiers 
"President of the Republic." 

In truth, however, the government remained "provisional." 
The majority of the Assembly hoped to change to a monarchy 
at some favorable moment, and they gave Thiers no fixed term of 
office.' Still, this presidency lasted more than two years longer 
(1871-1873), — the most glorious years of the old statesman's 
life, — and it was marked by three important features. 

490 



MONARCHISTS AND REPUBLICANS 



491 



1. France took up gallantly the huge loork of reorganization. 
Schools, army, and church were reconstructed (p. 495 ff.)- 

2. France was freed from foreign occupation, and Thiers won 
the proud title of "-Liberator of the Territory." It had been 
intended that the vast war indemnity should be paid in install- 
ments through three years ; and German garrisons were to 
remain in France until 
payment was complete. 
Germany had expected the 
indemnity to keep France 
weak for a long period. 
But France astonished all 
beholders by her rapid 
recovery. In eighteen 
months the indemnity was 
paid in coin, and the last 
German soldier had left 
French soil. The govern- 
ment loans (p. 500) were 
taken up enthusiastically 
by all classes of French- 
men, — in great measure 
by the industrious and pros- 
perous peasantry. 

3. Republicanism was 
strengthened. Thiers was 
an old Orleanist ; but he 
saw that to set up a king was to risk civil war. Accordingly, 
he allied himself with the Moderate Republicans in the As- 
sembly, and baffled triumphantly the efforts of the Monarchists. 
Meantime Republicanism grew stronger daily in the country. 

In 1873 a momentary coalition of Monarchists and Radicals ^^ ^j^^ 
in the Assembly forced Thiers to resign. In his place the Monarch- 
Monarchists elected Marshal MacMahon, an ardent Orleanist. jj^ahon's 
For some months a monarchic restoration seemed almost certain, presidency 




Thiers. 



After the portrait by Bonnat 
in 1876. 



492 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC 



The Consti- 
tution of the 
Third 
Republic 



Legitimists and Orleanists had at last united in support of the 
Count of Chambord, who agreed to adopt the Count of Paris 
as his heir. The Monarchists had the machinery of the govern- 
ment in their hands, and were just ready to declare the Bour- 
bon heir the King of France, when the two factions split once 
more on the question of a symbol. The Orleanists wished to 
keep the tricolor, the flag of the 1830 Monarch}^ But the 
Count of Chambord denounced the tricolor as the "symbol 
of revolution," and declared that he would not give up the white 
lilies of the old Bourbon monarchy, the symbol of divine right. 
On this scruple the chance of the Monarchists came to ship- 
wreck. 

Then, in 1875, despairing of mi immediate restoration, the 
Assevihly adopted a constitution. Modified slightly by later 
amendments, this is the present constitution of the French Re- 
public. It has never been submitted to the people. 

The Constitution is very brief, because the Monarchist major- 
ity preferred to leave the details to be settled by later legisla- 
tion, hoping to adapt them to a kingly government. The word 
''republic" did not appear in the original draft, but it was 
introduced, indirectly, by amendment. The first draft spoke 
of a "Chief Executive." An amendment changed this title to 
"President of the Republic" ; but the change was adopted by a 
majority of only one in a vote of 705. In 1884 ^ new amend- 
ment declared the republican form of government "not subject 
to repeal." 

The legislature consists of two Houses. The Senate contains 
three hundred members, holding office for nine years, one 
third going out each third year. (At first, seventy-five of 
the members were to hold office for life, but in 1884 an amend- 
ment declared that no more life members should be chosen.) 
The Deputies (lower House) are chosen by manhood suffrage 
for a term of four years. 

When the Senate and the House of Deputies agree that it is 
desirable to amend the constitution, or when it is necessary to 
choose a president, the two Houses .meet together, at Versailles, 



THE CONSTITUTION 493 

away from possible disturbances in Paris. In this joint form, 
they take the name National Assembly. A majority vote of this. 
National Assembly suffices to change the constitution. 

The executive consists of a president, elected for seven years 
by the National Assembly, and of the ministry he appoints. 
The president has much less power than the president of the 
United States. He is little more than a figurehead. He can 
act only through his ministers (cf. pp. 437, 438). 

The ministers, as in England, are the real executive. They 
wield enormous power, directing all legislation, appointing a 
vast multitude of officers, and carrying on the government. 
Nominally, the president appoints the ministers ; but, in prac- 
tice, he must always name those who will be acceptable to the 
Deputies, and the ministry is obliged to resign when it ceases 
to have a majority to support its measures. 

The Deputies maintain a control over the ministers by the 
right of interpellation. That is, any Deputy may address to the 
ministers a formal question, calling upon them to explain their 
action in any matter. Such a question must be answered fully ; 
and it affords a chance to overthrow the ministry, by a vote of 
" lack of confidence." 

Even after the adoption of the constitution, the Assembly did The 
not give way at once to a new legislature. But almost every "gjJ^ 
"by-election" (to fill a vacancy, upon death or resignation) established 
resulted in a victory for the Republicans ; and by 1876 that 
party had gained a majority of the seats. It at once dissolved 
the Assembly, and the new elections created a House of Deputies 
two thirds Republican. 

The Senate, with its seventy-five life-members, was still 
monarchic; and, with its support, MacMahon tried to keep a 
Monarchist ministry. During this contest the President and 
Senate dissolved the House of Deputies (as the constitution 
gives them power to do when they act together), and the 
ministry changed prefects and local officers all over France in 
order to control the election. But the Republicans rallied 



494 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC 

under the leadership of the fiery Gambetta (p. 485), and the 
new House of Deputies was even more strongly Republican 
than the preceding one. This body then ivithheM all votes of 
supply, until MacMahon appointed a ministry acceptable to it. 
In 1S79 the renewal of one third the Senate gave the Re- 
publicans a majority in that House also, and, soon after, Mac- 
Mahon resigned. Then the National Assembly elected to the 
presidency Grevy, an ardent Republican ; and all branches of 
the government had at last come under Republican control. 

Stability of For nearly a century, France had passed from revolution 
the Republic ^^ revolution, until the world came to doubt whether any 
French government could be stable — much as the same for- 
getful world had felt about England in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. The present constitution of France is the eleventh since 
1789. But in 1879, for the first time in the history of France, 
republican government was established by the calm will of the 
nation. Four times between 1792 and 1871 had the Republicans 
seized Paris ; three times they had set up a republic ; but 
never before had they truly represented the deliberate deter- 
mination of the whole people. In 1879 they came into power, 
not by violence, but by an eight years' constitutional struggle 
against the political tricks of an accidental Monarchist majority. 
This time it loas the Republicans whom the conservative, peace- 
loving peasantry supported. Even the World War did not bring 
any thought of a change in government. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 

The chief peril to the Repubhc has been its conflict with Church 



the clergy of the Catholic church. Seventy -eight per cent of the 
people of France are members of the Catholic church. Other 
religions make up about two per cent. Twenty per cent have 
no religious connection. 

During the dubious period from 1871 to 1879, the Repub- 
lican leaders felt that the bulk of the Catholic clergy were 
aiding the Monarchists with their tremendous influence. Cried 
Gambetta, in one of his fiery orations, — " Clericalism ! That 
is our foe." Accordingly, when the Republicans came into 
power, they hastened to weaken the church by taking from it 
its ancient control over the family. Marriage was made a 
civil contract (to be performed by a magistrate) instead of a 
sacrament ; divorce was legalized, despite the teachings of the 
Catholic church against it ; and all religious orders were for- 
bidden to teach in either public or private schools. 

The mass of the Catholic nation supported this anti-clerical 
policy ; but extreme Catholics were driven into fierce opposition 
to the government. The wise and gentle Pope Leo XIII, 
however, moderated the bitterness of the political warfare by 
recommending that French Catholics "rally" to the Republic, 
and try to get the privileges they needed by influencing 
legislation, not by trying to change the form of government 
(1893). On its side, the government then for a time let most of- 
the anti-clerical laws rest quietly unenforced. 

But about the year 1900, the Republicans and Radicals 
became alarmed again at the evidence of Monarchic sympathies 
still existing among the aristocracy, and even among army 
officers, and convinced themselves that these sympathies were 

495 



and State 



496 FRANCE UNDER THE REPUBLIC 

due to the remaining clerical influence in the schools. In the 
years 1901-1903, thousands of church schools were closed by 
the police, sometimes amid riots and bloodshed. Pope Pius X 
protested, and deposed two French bishops who had acquiesced 
in the government's policy. The government recalled its 
ambassador from the papal court, and prepared a plan which 
it called "Separation of Church and State," but which zealous 
Catholics denounced as anti-religious robbery. 

According to this new plan, a law of 1905 declared the 
nation the owner of all church property in France. Each 
religious congregation, however, was invited to reorganize as 
a "cultural association," and was promised permanent use 
of its old property if it did so. Protestant churches complied ; 
but such organization was forbidden to Catholics by the pope 
as incompatible with the principles of the church. In the 
elections of 1906, however, the nation gave an overwhelming 
indorsement to the whole anti-clerical policy ; and then the 
government evicted great numbers, of Catholic clergy from 
their homes (for refusing to obey the law of 1905) and banished 
multitudes of them from the country. In 1914, when the 
great European war began, two thousand of these banished 
priests returned to France to fight in the ranks against the 
invaders of their country. The " kulturkampf " (struggle 
between church and state to control education) is not yet fully 
ended in France ; but the splendid patriotism of the clergy 
in this great war will certainly result in some spirit of compro- 
mise for the future (1919). 
Local gov- For local government, France has been divided into 88 " De- 
partments." Each Department has an executive officer, called 
a prefect, and a General Council. The prefect is appointed 
by the Minister of the Interior, and he may be removed by the 
same authority. He appoints police, postmen, and other local 
officers. The General Council is elected by universal suffrage. 
It exercises control over local taxation and expenditures, 
especially for roads, asylums, and, to some degree, for schools ; 
but its decisions are subject to the supervision of the central govern- 



eniment 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT 497 

ment. Indeed, the central government may dissolve a Depart- 
mental council at any time, and order a new election. 

The communes of France, since the recovery of Alsace-Lor- 
raine, number about forty thousand. They vary in size from 
great cities, like Marseilles,^ to rural villages with only two 
or three hundred people. For all of them there is one system 
of government. Each has. a mayor and a council. Until 
1884, the mayor was appointed by the Minister of the Interior ; 
since 1884, he has been elected by the municipal council. He 
is still regarded, however, as the officer of the central govern- 
ment, which may revise his acts or even remove him from 
office. The municipal council is elected by manhood suffrage. 
All its acts are subject to the approval of the prefect or the 
central government, and the latter may dissolve the council. 

Such conditions do not seem very encouraging at first to an 
American student ; but the situation, as compared with the 
past in France, is full of promise. Political interest is steadily 
growing in the communes, and Frenchmen are learning more and 
more to u^e the field of self-government open to them. 

The French system of law seems to an American or an Eng- No bill 
lishman to be wanting in safeguards for personal liberty. Unlike "ghts 
the previous French constitutions, the present constitution has 
no "bill of rights." That is, there are no provisions in the 
fundamental law regarding jury trial, habeas corpus privileges, 
or the right of free speech. Even if there were, the courts 
could not protect the individual from arbitrary acts of the 
government by appealing to such provisions, because, in case 
of conflict between a citizen and the government, the suit 
is tried, not in the ordinary courts, but in administrative courts,"^ Administra- 
made up of government officials. This does not mean that, 
in ordinary times, an accused man is likely to suffer injustice. 
As a rule, the administrative courts mete out fair treatment. 

• Paris and Lyons are each organized as a department, with even less self- 
government than the other departments of the country. 

2 Ijowell, Governments and Parties, I, 50-55, or Greater European Govern- 
ments, index. 



498 



FRANCE UNDER THE REPUBLIC 



But in case of any supposed danger to the government, they 
may become its champions — at the expense of the rights of a 
citizen. This fact was forced upon the world's attention some 
years ago in the infamous Dreyfus trials. This case is a good 
topic for special report by a strong student. It is only too true, 
however, that in times of excited feeling other democracies have 
shown quite as serious a disregard of personal liberty. 

The zeal of the early Revolutionists for education (p. 300) 
has been noted. Said Danton, "Next to bread, education is 
the first need of a people." But, for want of time and money, 
their plans came to little ; and for a long time after the Restora- 
tion, nothing was done. In 1827 over a third of the communes 
of France had no primary school whatever, and nearly a third 
of the population could neither read nor write. 

The real growth of popular education dates from the Third 
Republic. Almost as soon as the Franco-Prussian war was 
over, France adopted in large measure the German plan for 
schools — with certain improvements. To-day, in every com- 
mune there is a primary school or group of schools. Education 
is free and compulsory and strictly regulated by the state. That 
is, the central government appoints teachers and regulates the 
courses of study. Each department has an excellent system 
of secondary schools, called lycees, and the higher institutions 
are among the most famous in the world. From about 1890 
they began to be sought by great numbers of advanced Amer- 
ican students, who were more and more repelled by the un- 
democratic atmosphere of German universities. When its 
recent birth is considered, the educational system of France is 
marvelously efficient. France has taken once more a first 
place in Europe in literature, art, and science. 

The advance of industry under the Third Republic has been 
enormous. In the forty years 1871-1911, the yearly pro- 
duction of wealth tripled (rising from one billion to three 
billions of dollars in value), though population grew less than 
one twentieth. In 1870, thirteen million tons of coal were 
mined; in 1911, forty-two millions. In 1870, less than 3000 



EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY 499 

patents were granted to inventors; in 1911, the number was 
nearly 15,000. 

All this is the more remarkable when we remember that 
in losing Alsace-Lorraine to Germany, France had lost 
its richest iron districts — an almost indispensable source 
of wealth in modern times. 

In the World War, at the very opening, Germany seized 
upon most of the remaining mineral districts of France, 
including all her coal fields, and held them to the close. 
Despite that fact, France actually increased her output of 
steel and iron manufactures during the war — finding a 
new source of energy in the water power of the slopes of the 
Pyrenees. 

But France is preeminently an agricultural country. The The French 
peculiar thing about French society, down to the War, has been 
the large number of small landowners and the prosperity of 
this landed peasantry. In 1900, more than half the entire 
population lived on the soil, and three fourths the soil was under 
crops. The great mass of cultivators owned little farms of from 
five to fifty acres ; 3,000,000 proprietors had less than twenty- 
five acres each. The cultivation was scientific in a high degree. 
France supplied her population with foodstuffs, and exported a 
large surplus. The subdivision of the soil was carried so far 
that it was difficult to introduce the best machinery (though 
neighborhood associations were being founded to own machinery 
in common) ; but the peasant was intelligent, industrious, 
thrifty, prosperous, happy, and conservative. 

The peasant wished to educate his son, and he had a high Population 
standard of living, compared with other European peasantry, stationary 
With five or six children, a farmer owning five or ten acres 
found it almost impossible to keep up this high standard, and 
to leave his children as well off as he himself had been. There- 
fore the peasantry have not wished large families, and for a long 
time population has been almost stationary. By the census of 
1911 it was a little under forty millions. The recovery of 



500 



FRANCE UNDER THE REPUBLIC 



Alsace-Lorraine, with its two millions of people, somewhat 
more than balances in numbers the losses in the War. 

This population was a "nation of little savers," and conse- 
quently a nation of money lenders. Through the nineteenth 
century, England was the world's banker. In 1900, France 
was beginning to hold that place. When a government wished 
to "float" a huge loan, or when capitalists wished to finance 
some vast industrial enterprise, France commonly furnished 
the cash. She furnished England cash for the Boer war, and 
Russia cash for the war with Japan (p. 557), and American 
bankers and capitalists the sums needful to tide over the 
"crisis" of 1907-1908. 

England still had more wealth than France; but it was 
largely "fixed" in long-time investments, while French wealth 
was growing rapidly and was held by a great number of people 
of small means, all seeking constantly for investments. The 
French national debt was not held, like the American or the 
English, in 1911, by men of great wealth, in large amounts, but 
by some 3,000,000 French people, — shopkeepers, clerks, 
artisans, day -laborers, small farmers, — in small amounts. 
The French government under the Third Republic had encour- 
aged this tendency of the workingman and the peasant to save 
and to " invest," by issuing its bonds in small denominations — 
as low even as one franc (20 cents). An American who wished 
to invest in United States bonds had to have at least $100 
at a time, — and then he often found it hard to get a bond. 
Under the Third Republic a Frenchman with 20 cents (1 franc) 
has no difficulty in buying a national certificate in any village. 
France was the first country to adopt this admirable plan 
of encouraging all citizens to become "bondholders" — and 
"stockholders in the national prosperity." The plan was 
followed by the United States, with the War Savings Stamps, 
during the World War. 

German invasion in the War of 1914-1918 has made much 
of the fairest part of France a hideous desert, and has drained 
the rest of workers and of wealth. But the heroic people who 



POLITICS AND PARTIES 



501 



for five terrible years of war showed a devotion to their country 

unsurpassed in history may be trusted now quickly to re-create 

her material prosperity by their skill and industry. 

Politics in France have been, much of the time, upon a lower French 

level than business life. The best minds of France have not ''°H!l*^^" 

shifting 

been present in the Assembly. That body has been broken ministries 
into many parties (nine in the election of 1914) ; and the 
ministries have been kaleidoscopic in their changes. The 40 
years from 1875 to 1915 saw 50 ministries. This meant woe- 
ful confusion and inefficiency ; and the government has suffered 
from red tape and from a widespread taint of corruption in 
politics. As in America in the seventiies and eighties of the 
• last century, the government has been unworthy of the people, 
and, down to the World War, it had been a mighty factor in 
bringing disrepute upon the nation. 

One promising feature was the growth of the Socialists into 
a true political party, working by regular constitutional means, 
not any longer by revolution. After 1900 the Socialists gained 
power rapidly ; and, in the election of 1914, they became the 
largest of the nine elements in the Assembly. All recent min- 
istries had contained leading Socialists, but the war called back 
to power more conservative statesmen — in the war ministry 
of Clemenceau, "the Tiger." 



About 1750 France bade fair to be the great colonial power Loss of the 
of the world. The century-long duel with England was then °^^ Colonies 
half over. "New France" was written on the map across the 
valley of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, and the 
richest lands of the Orient seemed within the French grasp. 
Thirteen years later saw France stripped of all possessions 
outside Europe, except a few unimportant islands in the 
Indian Ocean and in the Antilles and some small ports in 
India (pp. 244-245). 

In the nineteenth century France became again a colonial A new 
power. In 183CI the government of Charles X took advantage g^p^g 
of an insult by the Dey of Algiers to a French consul to seize since 1830 



502 



FRANCE UNDER THE REPUBLIC 



territory in North Africa. In the middle of the century this 
foothold had grown, through savage and bloody wars, into 
complete military occupancy of Algeria; and in the early 
years of the Third Republic civil rule was introduced. Since 
1880, Algeria has been not so much a foreign possession, or a 
colony, as a part of France separated from the rest by a strip 
of sea. The French make only a small part of the population, 
it is true, but the country is orderly and civilized. The settled 
portion, near the coast, is divided into three Departments, which 
are ruled essentially like the Departments in European France ; 
and it has representatives in the French legislature. The 
inland parts of Algeria are still barbarous and disorderly, but 
to this long-desolate Barbary coast, French rule has restored 
the fertility and bloom that belonged to it as the garden of the 
ancient Roman world. 

Nearly all the rest of the vast French colonial empire has been 
secured since the Franco-Prussian War. Algeria was of course 
only one of five great states on the Mediterranean coast of 
Africa, — Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt. All five 
had long been virtually independent Mohammedan kingdoms, 
though in name they had remained part of the decaying Turkish 
Empire. And all five, until Europeans stepped in, were in a 
vicious state of misrule, disorder, and tyranny. We have seen 
how in 1881 Egypt fell under England's "protection" (p. 469). 
France quickly regretted that she had so easily given up her 
claim to share in that rich land ; and so in the same year she 
seized gladly upon disorders in Tunis as an excuse for extending 
her authority, from Algeria eastward, over that country, mak- 
ing it a "protectorate." That is, France announced that she 
would control all the relations of Tunis with the outside world, 
but would leave unvexed its government over its own subjects at 
home — except that Frenchmen were to enjoy certain special 
trading privileges there. Before the World War, this "protec- 
torate" had been changed fully into a colonial possession — 
a change quite inevitable under such conditions because of the 
incompetence and misrule of the native sovereigns. 



THE COLONIAL EMPIRE 503 

Then, in 1904, France began in like fashion to extend her And . 
sway in North Africa toward the west ; estabUshing a protec- o^occo 
torate over part of Morocco. Spain had long controlled one 
part of that district ; and, in 1905 at a European conference, it 
was agreed that France and Spain should oversee the country 
in partnership — spite of a violent attempt by the German 
Kaiser to secure an equal footing there. 

Before seizing upon Tunis in 1881, — an act sure to German 
arouse violent resentment in Italy, which looked upon Tunis nvalry 
as her own prey — the French government thought it 
necessary to lay its plans before Bismarck. That astute 
statesman at that time had not begun to have any colonial 
ambition for Germany, and he encouraged the French 
project, welcoming the chance to arouse hostility between 
France and Italy. (Indeed, with characteristic crooked- 
ness, he at the same moment encouraged Italy to hope 
for Tunis.) Soon afterward, however (p. 520), Germany 
herself entered the race for colonial empire; and in 1911 
an extension of French rule in Morocco almost plunged 
Europe into war. William II of Germany sent a warship 
to Agadir, a harbor of Morocco, and "rattled the saber 
in the scabbard." But England supported France ; and 
Germany was finally appeased by European consent to 
her seizing territory in the Kamerun (West Africa) and by 
the cession to her of part of the French Congo territory, 

France has possessions in other parts of Africa. From the Other 
time of her ancient colonial empire she has always kept a hold c^fo^gs in 
upon Senegal ; and since 1884 she has acquired huge possessions Africa 
on both the east and west coasts, besides the great island of 
Madagascar (map facing p. 553). 

In America she holds Guiana (Cayenne), with a few ports And in Asia 
in the Antilles. In Oceanica, between 1884 and 1887 she ob- 
tained. New Caledonia and several smaller islands. Her most 
important colonies, outside Africa, are in the peninsula of Indo- 
China in southeastern Asia. Napoleon III seized Cambodia 



504 



FRANCE UNDER THE REPUBLIC 



French 
colonial 
admin- 
istration 



(1862) and Cochin China (1863); and the Third Republic, 
with Httle more scruple, seized Tonking in 1884, Anam in 1886, 
and Siam to the Mekong in a savage war in 1893-1896. For 
many years, moreover, the "imperialistic" forces in France 
("jingo" politicians and some large business interests) have 
sought an indirect control in Syria much like that which Ger- 
many was trying to establish in Asia Minor. 

The methods, then, by which France has secured most of her 
colonial empire have been about the same as those common 
with "civilized" states in dealings with barbarous and weak 
peoples. But French rule has always been gentle, kindly, and, 
on the whole, wise. 

At the same time, France is not herself a colonizing nation — 
any more than in the seventeenth century (p. 245). Large 
parts of her empire in Africa are almost unpeopled, or are 
inhabited by savage tribes and are under military government. 
The total population of French colonies (not counting the 
"protectorates") is about 41 millions. But even in the settled 
portions the European population is small. The total area of 
the colonial possessions is about four million square miles, of 
which about three and a half million are in Africa. All the 
settled and orderly regions have a share in self-government, 
and most of them have representatives in the legislature at 
Paris. 



For Further Reading. — The works mentioned on page 401 
continue to be valuable for France well into the Third Republic. The 
important constitutional documents are given in Anderson's Constitu- 
tions and Documents. 

For recent history of all European coimtries, every high school should 
have one or more good Reviews accessible or in the reading rooms, 
besides an International Year Book or The Statesman's Year Book, at 
least for every second or third year, and The World Almanac or The 
Daily News Almanac. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 

The national industry of Prussia is ivar. — Mirabeau, in 1790. 

The Germanic Confederation of 1814-1867 was a loose con- 
federacy of sovereign states. The German Empire of 1871- 
1918 was a federal state (p. 418). The central government was 
strengthened by the change, somewhat as was ours in America 
when we exchanged om* Articles of Confederation for our pres- 
ent Constitution. 

But this German "federated" Empire was not a "free" govern- A despotic 
ment. Federations are usually made up of republics-, this '^°^'^** 
one was made up mainly of monarchic states (4 kingdoms, 
18 duchies, 3 "free cities"). The controlling body in the 
Empire was the Federal Council, or Bundesrath, consisting The Federal 
during most of its history of 56 delegates, appointed by the rulers Co'^"' 
of the different states and directed from day to day by those 
princes. Prussia had seventeen of these delegates, — and 
fourteen could negative any change in the constitution. The 
Bundesrath prepared measures for the legislature, and had a 
veto upon all laws. 

The imperial legislature was the Reichstag — a one-House The 
assembly elected by manhood suffrage. Of the 397 delegates, eichstag 
Prussia had 236. Practically, the power of this assembly was 
limited to accepting or rejecting proposals from the Bundesrath. 
Even its control over taxation was incomplete. Most revenue 
measures were not annual appropriations, but standing laws. 
That is, once passed, they could not be changed without the 
consent of the Bundesrath. The imperial ministry, appointed 
by the Emperor, was called "responsible"; but this was not 
in the English sense. The ministry was not obliged to resign 

505 



506 



THE GERMAN EMPIJIE, 1871-1918 



The 

Emperor 
an autocrat 



The Prus- 
sian consti- 
tution, 
1848-1918 



if outvoted in the Reichstag. The Reichstag was Httle more 
than a debating society — but a debating society had value 
in a land where otherwise there was no free speech. 

During most of the history of the Empire, Alsace was 
a "territory"; but in 1909 it was given statehood. At 
that time the number of delegates in the Reichstag was 
somewhat increased, but there was only a slight approach 
to a true reapportionment. The constitution had prom- 
ised "periodic" reapportionment of representatives, to suit 
changes in population ; but during the life of the Empire 
none took place, though population shifted greatly. In 
the American Congress, during that period, we had four 
reapportionments . 

In theory, the Emperor was only the life president of the 
federation. But this life presidency was hereditary in the 
kings of Prussia — somewhat as if the governor of New York 
were ex-officio President of the United States. Moreover, there 
was no provision for impeaching the Emperor; and, through 
his control over the ministry and over so large a part of the 
Bundesrath (he appointed the large Prussian delegation), he 
controlled all foreign relations and virtually held a veto upon all 
domestic legislation. 

The E.nperor held still mightier authority in the Empire from 
his position as despotic ruler of Prussia. Prussia had three 
fifths of the population of the Empire, and more than that part 
of the power. Her own divine-right "constitution" was the 
one "granted" by the king in '48 (p. 396). The upper House 
of the Prussian legislature was an hereditary body composed of 
bigoted Prussian "Junker" nobility. The lower House was 
elected; and all male citizens were supposed to have a voice 
in choosing it. But the people voted, in, three classes, according 
to wealth, in such a way as to give two thirds the representation 
to the richest one sixth of the voters. In Berlin in the election 
of 1902 a rich man's vote counted for that of fifty poor men.^ 
1 For illustrations, see Davis' Roots of the War. 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE 
1871-1914 

SCALE OF MILES 



30 40 60 80 100 120 110 160 180 200 



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S E A 

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2-RLa 



Nx) 




AUTOCRACY 507 

Then the legislature had little authority anyway. The king 
could adjourn or dissolve it, and could veto its acts absolutely. 
His ministers, too, were beyond its control. 

. The other states of the Empire were less despotic. All had Prussia 
representative legislatures ; but few of them gave these legis- Germany 
latures real control over the administration. In general, South 
Germany was less military and more democratic than Prussia. 

The imperial government was frugal and was supposed to be The 
exceedingly honest and efficient, until at the close of the World *'™P""® 
War we learned that it had allowed privileged wealth to fatten despotism 
upon the misery of the poor. It claimed to be paternal in the 
extreme. It made justice in the courts easy to secure ; it 
guarded against food adulteration long before the rest of the 
world did ; and in other ways it zealously protected the public 
health. 

But, alongside this watchful paternalism, there were grievou^ Militarism 
faults. Germany had been made by violence, and the result 
showed in the spirit of militarism and in the predominance of 
the methods of the drill sergeant and the policeman. A policeman's 
evidence in a court was equal to that of five independent wit- 
nesses, and his rule was all-pervading. Said a keen foreign 
observer (1896): — "The policeman strolls into your house 
or garden when he likes, much as a master enters the classroom 
to see that all is going on properly. If you go for a bath, he 
will forbid you to get out of your depth, swim you never so 
strongly. . . . To live in Germany always seems to me like 
a return to the nursery." 

Even worse was the contemptuous and oftentimes brutal 
treatment of civilians by army officers. For years the news- 
papers contained reports of gross and unprovoked insults, and 
sometimes of violent assaults, by officers upon unoffending 
citizens, for which it was difficult to obtain redress in the courts. 
The most famous of these perhaps is the "Zabern incident." 

Zabern, a little city in Alsace, contained a small garrison. 
Among the officers was a young Baron von Forstner, typical 



508 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 



The 

" Zabera 

incident " 



No security 
for personal 
liberty 



Prussian junker. This young "hero'' had already given occa- 
sion for one mihtary trial because of trouble with citizens, and 
in November of 1913 he quarreled on the street with a lame 
shoemaker, who, he thought, failed to show him due deference. 
Feeling his "honor" injured, the noble baron drew his saber 
and hacked down the cripple — whom two soldiers were holding 
for the purpose. For this a court-martial sentenced the officer 
to one year in custody ; but a higher court-martial at once 
reversed this judgment, and acquitted the baron as having acted 
only "in self-defense." Socialists in the Reichstag took up 
the case, and carried an overwhelming "vote of censure" upon 
the ministry — which had arrogantly defended the rowdy. 
This meant nothing. In any other parliament, the ministry 
would have resigned. But this German ministry smiled in- 
solently and went on with their "order of the day." 

Nor was there any security for personal rights against even 
the ,non-military government. True, the constitution contained 
a bill of rights, but the courts had no power to declare void an 
unconstitutional law. The administration, too, could appeal 
cases in which it was interested to administrative courts with- 
out juries} As a result, trial by jury, freedom of the press, 
freedom of public meetings, and free speech existed only in a 
limited degree. To criticize the Emperor in the press, ever so 
lightly, was likely to land the offender in jail for a considerable 
term. In January, 1898, it was reported on good authority 
that seventy German editors were in prison for that offense. 
The following anecdote illustrates how limited is the right of 
public meeting. In 1897 a landed proprietor gave a harvest 
festival for his workmen. Some fifty in all, they marched to a 
wood and had a picnic. A fe^ days later the proprietor and 
several of the men were arrested on the charge of having held 
a public meeting without notifying the police. No other fault 
was alleged, but the offenders were sentenced to fines or short 
terms in jail. 



1 Russell's Social Democracy, 48-50, gives an interesting account of a 
famous trial of the Socialist Lassalle (p. 515). 



AUTOCRACY 509 

This autocracy was upheld most of all by the landed squires, The junkers 
or junkers. Says Dr. Davis (Roots of the War, 188), — "A 
typical junker was the owner of a large landed property with a 
picturesque and uncomfortable ancient schloss (castle) dominat- 
ing a village or town, where peasant children scrambled with 
pigs and chickens in the great dungheaps before the houses. 
He might come to enjoy city life. . . . He might reform his 
agricultural methods. . . . None the less he remained heart 
and soul a country aristocrat . . . accustomed to curse his 
inferiors, to cane his servants, and to despise all who lived by 
trade." 

This class furnished the officers of the army. For most of 
them, indeed, the army was the only possible career. Pay was 
pitifully small, and the nobles were poor. But the officer's 
social standing made it easy for him to find a wife among the 
daughters of wealthy merchants. No officer, however, could 
make such a marriage until a committee of higher officers had 
approved the bride — and the dower which was to atone for 
her ignoble blood. 

The autocracy had one other pillar — a new element in German 

German life. The junkers were largelv Prussian and rural. '^^^ „ 
•' . . Business 

But after 1870 Germany began to grow into a city Germany. 
The "industrial revolution," with the factory system, which had 
grown up in England before 1800 and in France by 1825, did 
not begin to make headway in Germany until nearly 1870. 
Then, indeed, manufactures and trade grew by leaps — aided 
by the coal and iron of Alsace-Lorraine and by subsidies from 
the huge war indemnity just then robbed of France. Science 
became the servant of manufactures as it had not before been 
in any other country. Especially was chemistry applied suc- 
cessfully to industries like the manufacture of dyes — which 
became practically a German monopoly. The whole artisan 
class, too, were trained to "efficiency" in trade schools, — which 
were distinctly class schools, suited on this German plan to an 
undemocratic land only, in which the son of an artisan must 
look for no "higher" station than his father. 



510 THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 

All this meant a tremendous growth of cities. Hamburg 
grew from 350,000 people in 1870 to 1,000,000 in 1910; Berlin 
from 820,000 to 2,000,000 ; Essen from 50,000 to 300,000 ; while 
many wholly new centers of trade appeared where had been 
only farming hamlets. The population of the Empire doubled 
in these forty years, and all this increase was a city increase — 
which meant that the old city population was multiplied four- 
fold. Along with this change, there appeared a new figure 
in German life, the princely manufacturing capitalist. After 
1880, the thousands of this class took their place — alongside 
the junker nobility — as a chief support of German autocracy 
with a vivid expectation of favors to be received in form of 
special privileges. 

The war revealed this class as gross exploiters, fattening on 
their country's need. In no other land did war-profiteering 
prosper on so large a scale as in Germany, where the general 
misery was so terrible. This . growth of huge war-fortunes 
was shown plainly by the government's income-tax reports in 
1918, as published in German papers. 

The Prus- The junker and the capitalist made public opinion, but the 

sian army autocracv had also its physical arm. After 1866, the Prussian 
system 

army system was extended over all Germany. The fundamental 

principle was the universal obligation of all males to serve. 

The army was the armed nation. At twenty each man was 

supposed to enter the ranks for two years' active service. For 

five years more he was a member of the "active reserves," 

with two months in camp each year. These reserves were to 

be called out for regular service in case of war. For twelve 

years more he was listed in the territorial reserve — liable for 

garrison duty in time of war, and even for front rank service 

in special need. Exemption from training was usually allowed 

to the only son of a dependent widow, to students of theology, 

and to those unfit because of physical defects. 

The Prussian victories of 1866 and 1870 convinced all Europe 

of the superiority of this system over the old professional armies, 



MILITARISM 



511 



and nearly every state in Europe soon adopted it, with slight Europe 
variations as to age and exemptions. Europe became a group ^°p^^ t^® 
of armed camps. Along with this went ever increasing atten- army system 
tion to improved rifles, larger, cannon, and other costly arma- 
ment. The burden was enormous, and the direct cost was 
far less than the indirect cost involved in withdrawing so large 
a part of each man's best years from productive work. Eng- 
land, trusting to her navy, and the United States, trusting 
to her position, were the only large countries that dared refuse 
the crushing burden — and for England the cost of her navy 
was almost as serious. Certain good results, no doubt, as 
well as many evil ones, came from the military' discipline ; but 
on the whole that army system was the most woeful waste of 
human energy the world ever saw. 

Worse still, this militarism was a constant temptation to 
war ; and, in Germany, the worst result was the way in which it 
helped to make the masses servile in private life under the rule 
of king, junker, and policeman. Flogging and other brutal 
punishment for slight offenses was the rule in the Prussian army ; 
and there are reliably reported numerous cases of suicide by 
soldiers who were so mistreated by officers that they could no 
longer live in decent self-respect. Those who submitted to 
such "discipline" became slaves. 

Militarism was one phase of the Prussian danger to the Militarism 
world, as autocracy was the other phase. Militarism is not 
the same thing as having a large army, though it is likely 
to grow out of having one. Militarism is a state of mind re- 
garding the army : a habit of thinking that the army is the 
most important matter, of exalting it above the civil powers 
at home, and of trusting to force in relations with other nations 
rather than to justice and good will and reason. In the long 
run, too, militarism leads to a servile attitude on the part of 
the people toward army officers, wholly incompatible with 
democracy.^ 

1 War Encyclopedia, under "Militarism" and " Prussianism " ; and C. 
Altschul's German Militarism and Its German Qrilics, esp. pp. 20-21. 



512 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 



Divine 

Right 

Emperors 



Kaiser 
Wilhelm II 



The Emperor, head of the government and of the army, 
claimed obedience as of divine right. At his coronation, William 
I took the crown from the communion table, declaring, "The 
crown comes only from God, and I have received it from His 
hands." And in an election manifesto of 1882, he reminded 
all officials that "the duty tvhich you have sworn to perform [in 
the oath of office] extends to supporting the policy of the govern- 
ment at the elections." 

In 1888 William was succeeded by his son, Frederick III. 
Frederick was an admirer of parliamentary government upon 
the English pattern. His wife Victoria was a daughter of the 
great English queen ; and he had long been hostile to Bismarck. 
But Frederick was suffering from a fatal disease at the time of 
his accession, and his three months' reign brought no change 
in the government. 

William II, the son of Frederick, returned to the principles 
of his grandfather. As a youth, he had been a great admirer 
of Bismarck ; but it soon became plain that the two men were 
each too masterful to work together, and in 1890 the Emperor 
curtly dismissed the Chancellor from office. Thereafter, 
William H himself directed the policy of the Empire, and 
he was a greater force in European politics than any other 
sovereign in Europe. He believed thoroughly in the "divine 
right" theory, and he repeatedly stated it in as striking a form 
as ever did James I of England or Louis XIV of France, two 
or three centuries ago. 

In the Visitors' Book in the Town Hall of Munich, he wrote, 
"The will of the king is the supreme law." In an address to his 
army, he said: "On me, as German Emperor, the spirit of 
God has descended. I am His sword and His vice-regent." 
In 1891, in an address to a body of military recruits, he said : 
"You are now my soldiers. You have given yourselves to me, 
body and soul. There is now but one enemy for you, and that 
is my enemy. In these times of socialistic intrigue, it may 
happen that I shall order you to fire upon your brothers or 
fathers. In such case you are bound to obey me without 



DIVINE-RIGHT AUTOCRACY 513 

a murmur !'\ In 1897, in a prepared address, he set forth 
at length his office as a "vice-regent of God"; and the same 
year, his brother Henry, when about to set sail for China, in 
command of a German expedition, used the following words 
in a public address to the Emperor : " Of one thing I can assure 
Your Majesty. Neither fame nor laurels have charm for me. 
One thing is the aim that draws me on : it is to declare in for- 
eign lands the evangel of Your Majesty's hallowed person." " All- 
Highest" was a recognized form of address for the Emperor. 
And the phrase ironically attributed to him — "Me und Gott" 

— is no great exaggeration of the patronizing way in which he 
often referred to the Almighty as a partner in his enterprises 

— as in the famous address at Berlin in 1901 : "We shall con- 
quer even though we be surrounded by enemies ; for there 
lives a powerful all}^ the old, good God in heaven, who ever 
since the time of the Great Elector has always been on our 
side." 

Some survey like the foregoing is needful to guard us against Germany 
the "tyranny of names." England and Germany in 1914 were and England 
both " constitutional monarchies " ; but that does not mean that 
they were in any way alike, even in government. They stood 
at the two poles of government. England had a democratic 
government, in which the monarchic and aristocratic survivals 
were practically powerless — mere matters of form ; the German 
Empire was one of the most absolute autocracies in the world. 
England's ideals were based upon industry and world-peace : 
Germany's ideals were based upon militarism and conquest. 
Englishmen thought of the "state" as a condition for the full 
development of the individual man : Germans thought of 
individual men as existing primarily for the sake of the ab- 
solutist state. German capitalism was perhaps in itself no 
more grasping and greedy than like forces in other countries. 
But in England, America, or France, those forces must cease 
to work evil whenever the majority of the people are wise enough 
and good enough to will it so — and vote so : in Germany that 
capitalistic greed was backed by an irresistible military despot- 



514 THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 

ism against which the masses were powerless, either by ballots 
or bullets. 
Bismarck's For nearly twenty years after the Empire was established, 
Bismarck directed its course. The "Iron Chancellor" was a 
ruler of tremendous power of will ; but he carried his policy 
of "blood and iron" into civil affairs — and failed. Three 
, contests fill the period : the kulturkampf ; the attempt to 

suppress the Socialists ; the attempt to Germanize the border 
provinces. 
The struggle 1. The Empire had brought Catholic and Protestant Ger- 
c\h lic^ many under one government. This resulted at once in a 
church serious conflict between church and state. The immediate out- 

break came in connection with a famous decree of the Vatican 
Council of 1870, affirming the pope to be infallible (incapable 
of error) in matters of faith and morals. The German bishops 
at the Council, true to the old traditions of Germany, refused 
to assent to this new statement, and withdrew in a body. 
Within a year they had for the most part fallen into line ; but 
some of them maintained their position and took the name of 
Old Catholics. This sect was soon attacked vigorously by the 
orthodox bishops. Instructors in the clerical schools who did 
not teach the dogma of infallibility were suspended from their 
offices and excommunicated ; teachers in the primary schools 
were dismissed ; and the orthodox clergy refused to perform 
the marriage ceremony for followers of the Old Catholics. 

Then Bismarck stepped in for the defense of the Old Catho- 
lics ; and appa-rently he was not sorry for so good an occasion 
to assert the supremacy of the state over the church. Under 
his influence, the legislature took marriage and all education, 
private and public, from the control of the church. The 
Jesuits were expelled from Germany ; the state assumed control 
over the education of priests ; and the church was forbidden to 
exclude its own members except with government permission 
The bishops and orthodox clergy formally refused to obey 
these laws, and Bismarck fell back upon a series of violent 
measures. Priests were deprived of office, and were even pun- 



GERMAN SOCIALISM 515 

ished by long terms of imprisonment or by exile. The pope 
protested, and in 1875 he declared that the anti-clerical laws 
ought not to be obeyed. The Empire had already withdrawn its 
ambassador from the papal court, and Bismarck now confis- 
cated ecclesiastical salaries and took into the government's 
hands all the property and revenues of the church, at the 
same time expelling all Catholic religious orders. 

These measures have been described as having a military 
character, — " designed to cut off the enemy from his commis- 
sariat and to deprive him of his most active troops." From 
1875 to 1879, the government held its position. One fifth 
the parishes in Prussia had no clergy ; schools and seminaries 
were closed ; chairs of theology in the German universities 
were vacant ; houses of the clergy were raided by the police ; 
and numbers of men of devoted Christian lives and broad schol- 
arship languished in prison or in exile. 

This persecution, however, was ineffective against the heroic 
resistance of the clergy, and it steadily lost favor among the 
people. A strong and growing "Catholic" party in the Reichs- 
tag, "the Center," hampered all Bismarck's projects ; and finally 
he was forced to make terms with it, in order to secure the legis- 
lation he desired against the Socialists and for tariffs. In 1880 
the government began its retreat; and it abandoned step by 
step every position it had assumed in the quarrel. The chief 
result of the contest was the large, watchful Conservative 
party, "the Center," during the rest of the life of the Empire. 
Bismarck had failed utterly. 

2. Socialism did not become prominent in Germany until Bismarck 
after 1848. German Socialism was founded by Karl Marx socialists 
(p. 383), but its teachings were thrown among the masses 
by Lassalle, a brilliant writer and orator. Wheji manhood 
suffrage was introduced in the election of the Reichstag 
of the North German Confederation, the Socialists got their 
first chance. They held eight seats in the Reichstag of 1867. 
Faithful to their doctrine of human brotherhood, these men 
in 1870 earnestly opposed the war with France, especially after 



516 THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 

it became a war for conquest, and they criticized the seizure 
of Alsace-Lorraine against the will of the inhabitants. 

This "unpatriotic" attitude resulted in a check. The leaders 
were tried for treason and condemned to years of imprison- 
ment ; and in the first Imperial Reichstag (1871) the party had 
only two representatives. But in 1874 the number had risen to 
nine, and in 1877, to twelve. 

Bismarck then began to feel it needful to put down Socialism. 
His first effort to secure repressive laws from the Reichstag 
failed, but it called out two attempts by Socialist fanatics 
to assassinate the Emperor (1877, 1878). The criminals had 
no sanction from the Social Democratic party ; but they played 
into Bismarck's hands. Taking swift advantage of popular 
alarm, he dissolved the Reichstag ; and the new election gave 
a legislature ready to go all lengths against the "Red Specter." 
New laws gave the government authority to dissolve associations, 
break up meetings, confiscate publications, suspend habeas 
corpus privileges and jury trial, and banish suspects by decree, 
without any trial at all. Not content with these extraordinary 
powers, Bismarck made them retroactive, and at once banished 
from Berlin sixty or seventy men who had formerly been con- 
nected with the Socialists. 

The Socialists met this ruthless severity with as much forti- 
tude and heroism ^ as the Catholic clergy had shown in their 
conflict. Socialism for a time became an underground current. 
In 1881, just after the beginning of the repressive legislation, 
the Socialist vote fell off somewhat ; but in the election of 1884 
it had risen to over half a million — much more than ever be- 
fore — and in 1887 it was over three fourths of a million. Then 
the repressive laws were allowed to expire ; and in 1890 the 
vote was doubled. Again the Iron Chancellor had failed. 

During the latter part of the struggle, it is true, Bismarck 

used also a wiser policy of cutting the ground from under the 

feet of the Socialist agitators by improving the condition of 

the working classes, along lines pointed out by the Socialists 

' For an account, see Russell, Social Democracy, 103-114. 



tries state 
socialism 



BISMARCK AND SOCIALISM 517 

themselves. In 1884, he said, — " Give the workingman the 
right to work while he is well, and assure him care when he is 
sick, and maintenance when he is old, and the Social Demo- 
crats will get no hold upon him." 

In accordance with these principles, Bismarck favored the Bismarck 
introduction of great public works to afford employment, and 
he created a state fund to help insure the injured and the aged. 

(1) The state compelled the laborers to insure against sickness. 

(2) It insured them against accident, taking the premium from 
the employer. And (3) it paid old-age pensions to men over 
seventy years of age, out of a fund created partly by payments 
from the insured, partly by payments from the employers, and 
partly by a payment from the state treasury. 

In this "Social insurance," Germany was a pioneer — though 
England and France have since passed by her. The condition 
of the laborers, however, remained miserable. The legislation 
was only a sop. It did not weaken Social Democracy. Indeed 
the Socialists railed at it as fear-inspired, poor-law legislation. 
To Bismarck, and to William II, it was the duty of the divine-right 
government to care for the laborer. To the Social Democrats, 
it is the right of the laborers themselves to control the govern- 
ment and to care for themselves through it. 

It is convenient here to carry the topic of Socialism down Growth of 

to the Great War. After 1898 the Socialists were much the 1^®. ,. ^ 

Socialist 

largest political party, gaining heavily in every election. In party 
1912 the total vote, 12,188,000, was split among fifteen parties, 
but the Socialists cast 4,239,000 of those votes — or more 
than twice as many as any other party. This was largely, 
no doubt, because the Socialist conventions had put first in 
their platforms a number of practical political and economic 
measures which the average American or Englishman would 
not regard as dangerous, — such as universal suffrage (including 
"votes for women"); the initiative and referendum; equal 
electoral districts ; payment of members of the Reichstag ; 
responsibility of the government to the Reichstag; popular 



518 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 



Socialist 
criticism of 
the govern- 
ment 



William II 
and the 
Socialists 



local government ; securities for free speech ; a militia system 
in place of the army system ; an eight-hour labor day, with 
prohibition of employment of children under fourteen ; free- 
dom to organize labor unions ; and progressive income taxes. 

In the Reichstag, speech was fairly free — as it was not 
elsewhere in Germany — and the Socialist deputies opposed 
bitterly the huge army and naval bills, with all the govern- 
ment's long preparation for war. Sometimes this opposition 
became personal and vehement. In 1894 the Socialist deputies 
unanimously kept their seats, when, at the opening of the 
Reichstag, cheers for the Emperor were called for ; and in 1909 
Philip Scheidemann exclaimed in debate that lying ("word- 
breaking") was "the most characteristic tradition" of the 
Hohenzollerns. 

William II, for a time, seemed disposed to use gentler methods 
than those that Bismarck had followed ; but he, too, soon 
became alarmed at the growth of the Socialist vote, and in 
1894-1895 he tried vehemently to secure another "excep- 
tional law," even more sweeping than Bismarck's legislation. 
The proposed bill provided two years' imprisonment for "pub- 
licly attacking religion, the monarchy, marriage, the family, 
or property, by insulting utterances." Under such a law, to 
suggest a change in the government to a republican form, or, 
indeed, to urge much milder changes, might constitute a crime ; 
and so all Liberals joined with the Socialists in voting down 
the proposal. The Catholics did not dare to vote for it, lest 
their opposition to civil marriage should be treated as a crime. 



Bismarck 
and the 
frontier 
peoples 



3. Equally violent, and more long-continued, was Bismarck's 
effort to Germanize the Poles of Posen, the Danes of Slesvig, 
and the French of Alsace. To each of these subject peoples, 
Germany forbade all use of its own language. The Slesvig 
Danes were not allowed to teach any history in their schools 
prior to the time when they were seized by Prussia. The 
Poles were tempted by the government to sell their lands to 
German immigrants ; and, when instead they sold cheap to 



GERMANIZING THE BORDER LANDS 519 

their own race, the lands were seized by the government (with 
compensation). But even then the Germans whom the gov- 
ernment induced to settle in Posen rapidly became Poles in 
feeling, as those induced to settle in Alsace often became French. 
To the end, the delegates in the Reichstag from these three 
districts were always "in opposition" to the government. 
Again "blood and iron" failed,^ though continue4 relentlessly 
for more than twenty years after Bismarck's rule. When the 
World War began, a German statesman said truly, "In 
Alsace, we are in an enemy's country." The Prussian system, 
begotten of force, had confidence only in force — and so proved 
itself unfit for the problems of modern life. 

There should be no trouble in distinguishing between 
this policy of forceful Germanization of if/?willing, con- 
quered subjects, and our Americanization, by inducement, 
of those foreigners who of their own will have sought homes 
in our midst. 

In another matter, Bismarck's failure was less blamable. Growth of 
but equally dear. The old Germany of his youth had been an commerce 
agricultural country. Foreign trade had been of little conse- 
quence. The new capitalist and commercial Germany that 
grew up after 1870 he never felt any real sympathy for. He 
saw its force, in part, but he did not understand it, or like it. 
After a short resistance, in 1878, he yielded to its demands for 
high protective tariffs, and, finally, to demands for subsidies 
wherewith to build up lines of merchant marine, like the Ham- 
burg-American and North German Lloyd. But the manu- 
facturing interest began early to call also for a colonial empire, The demand 

outside Europe, for a safe and "sole" market. This demand foracolomal 

. . empire 

Bismarck resisted for years. He was intensely proud of the 

Germany he had made, and wished only to preserve it. 

' A dramatic narrative of the failure, with much picturesque incident, 
is given in Davis' Roots of the War, 226-248. There is admirable material 
there for a "special report" by a student to the class. 



520 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 



Growth of 
the 

colonial 
empire 



And the 
fall of 
Bismarck 



But the manufacturers' demand for colonies was supported 
also by a people's demand. After 1880 the label "Made in 
Germany" began to be seen on all sorts of articles in all parts 
of the world, and before 1900 German}^ had passed all countries 
except England and the United States in manufactures and 
trade. Still the nation was not content. Population was 

growing rapidly. In 1815 
the states that made 
up the Germany of 1914 
counted' only 25 million 
people. Now those lands 
had come to count 67 
millions — besides many 
million more who had 
sought homes in other 
lands. This growth had 
resulted in an immense 
emigration, mainly to the 
United States and to 
Argentina, Brazil, and 
other South American 
countries. And so, partly 
to meet the commercial 
demands of the capitalists, and partly to keep future German 
emigrants under the German flag, Bismarck reluctantly adopted 
the policy of acquiring colonics. 

Bismarck announced this plan in 1884- At that time Ger- 
many had no possessions outside Europe, and no war navy. 
But, though late in entering the scramble for foreign possessions, 
she made rapid progress, in part because England no longer 
felt any wish to secure new realms. Then, in 1890, the young 
William II dismissed Bismarck from office. This act was due 
to the natural conflict of wills between two stubborn men, 
but also partly to the fact that the new Emperor felt that 
the old Chancellor was "out of date." William stood, not for 
Bismarck's policy of preserving the great existing Germany of 




Bismarck, after dismissal from office. 
From a photograph. 



COLONIAL EXPANSION 



521 



that day, but for a new "Pan-German" policy of making Ger- 
many greater — by means even more unscrupulous than those 
Bismarck had used — until she should be world-mistress. 
To this end, he sought to get colonies more eagerly than Bis- 
marck had done. 

Thereafter the colonial empire mounted by leaps. At the 
opening of the World War, Germany had vast possessions in 
Africa (map facing p. 553), a million square miles in all, mainly 
on the Guinea coast and in South Africa on both east and west 
coasts. The English self-governing colonies in South Africa, 
dreading the neighborhood of German militarism, had warned 
the government in England of the German plans for seizing this 
last territory and had vainly implored England to act first. 
But England felt that she had lands enough, and she had no 
wish to arouse German envy needlessly. 

In like manner, spite of warnings and protests from Australia, Germany in 
England permitted Germany to occupy much of the rich island 
of New Guinea. In the western Pacific also Germany secured 
many valuable groups of islands, and shortly after 1890 she 
began to obtain "concessions" in Asia Minor from the 
Turkish government. She did not get absolute title to terri- 
tory there, but she secured, by treaties, many valuable rights of 
trade and of railroad building in those rich regions ; and she ex- 
pected some time to convert these claims into full ownership. 



Australasia 
and in Asia 
Minor 



As a means to this end, the German government began to Germany 



cultivate the favor of the Sultan of Turkey on all occasions, 
some of them shameful. The growing moral sense in inter- 
national matters in England made it no longer possible for that 
country after 1880 to bolster up the dastard rule of the Turk 
over subject Christian peoples ; but Germany stepped gladly 
into England's old place as champion of the Turk. This change 
appeared plainly during the horrible "Armenian Massacres" of 
1894-1895. To check a probable move for Armenian inde- 
pendence, the Turkish government turned loose upon that 
unhappy province — for the first of several times to come — 



seeks 

Turkish 

friendship 



522 THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 

hordes of savage soldiery to carry out a policy of frightfulness 
by licensed murder, pillage, and ravishment of a peaceful popu- 
lation. At least ten thousand Armenians were murdered. In 
England in 1895 monster mass meetings called upon the Eng- 
lish government to intervene by arms. But Russia, fearful 
lest her Armenians might be encouraged to rebel, supported 
Turkey ; France, just then hostile to England in colonial mat- 
ters and bound to Russia as an ally, took the same side ; and 
the German Emperor sent his photograph and that of his wife 
to the Assassin-in-chief of Turkey, to show his friendly adhesion. 
The English government felt powerless. From his retirement 
(p. 464) the aged Gladstone once more lifted his voice, urging 
that even under these hopeless conditions, England should 
alone challenge the world and take up the work of mercy ; 
and the Tory prime minister, Lord Salisbury, confessed regret- 
fully that in 1878 and 1854 "we put our money on the wrong 
horse." But he saw no chance to act. Two years later, how- 
ever, when Turkey, backed by Germany, began similar outrages 
in the island of Crete, England succeeded in bringing Russia 
and France into a movement to compel Turkey to cede Crete 
to Greece. 

Germany In 1897 another field for German colonization opened, even 

in China niore attractive. Two missionaries of German birth were 
murdered in China, and the Kaiser made that event an excuse 
to seize a valuable Chinese port, Kiau Chau, with a large 
adjacent territory. From this center, Germany acquired a 
"sphere of influence" in Shantung in which German capitalists 
developed mines and built railroads, as Russians were doing 
to the north, and Englishmen and Frenchmen to the south. 
Germany was rapidly converting a rich section of China into a 
German dependency ; and a satirical German Socialist news- 
paper in a cartoon represented the Kaiser saying, — " If only 
my missionaries hold out, I may become master of all Asia." 

But as a colonizing nation, Germany did not prove a success. 
Capitalists went in small numbers to Asia Minor and to China, 



THE KAISER'S NAVY 523 

but they did not go to Africa; and the mass of emigrants still 
sailed to America, giving up German citizenship. German colo- 
nies contained a population of some 14 million people in 1911, 
but only 20,000 of these were whites. The government was 
believed anxious to obtain possessions in South or Central 
America, where German emigrants might make their homes ; 
and but for the Monroe Doctrine of the United States, some 
attempts in these lines would probably have been made. This 
was one reason for the deep hostility felt by the German govern- 
ment for the United States in the years just before the yVorld 
War. 

However, the matter of non-European homes for German 
emigrants became really of little consequence after 1900, 
because the number of emigrants became smaller. In the 
nineties the numbers were from 200,000 to 300,000 a year. 
But from 1909 to 1914 it was only from 20,000 to 30,000. The 
vast development of industry in Germany itself, along with 
the government's discouragement of emigration, decided in- 
tending emigrants to stay at home. 

And Germany proved herself absolutely unfit to rule subject 
races in the tropics. In South Africa she turned the natives 
virtually into slaves to secure the ivory and rubber of the in- 
terior ; and in 1907-1909, when the cruelly oppressed peoples 
rose in revolt, she put down the risings with medieval cruelty, 
practically exterminating the Herreros, one of the most promis- 
ing of African races. 

In one particular Kaiser William took up a policy wholly William II 
unlike Bismarck's. He determined to make Germany a great ^^ 
naval power, as well as a great military power. He constructed 
the Kiel Canal, so that the navy might have perfect protection, 
and so that it might instantly concentrate in either the North 
Sea or the Baltic ; and year by year, against violent Socialist 
resistance, he forced vast appropriations through the Reichstag 
to construct more and huger superdreadnoughts. 

The excuse given for this was the need to protect the new 
trade and the new colonies ; but the real motive, absolutely 



524 THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918 

plain and often confessed by Germans, was to destroy England 
and weaken America at the first chance. Indeed the Kaiser 
and his advisers said openly that had their fleet been ready 
they would have attacked the United States at the time of the 
Spanish American War, and destroyed the Monroe Doctrine, 
with its check upon German plans in South America. In 
1902 Germany had a difficulty with Venezuela, and showed a 
plain intention of at least seizing a port there as a naval base. 
Theodore Roosevelt, then President, sent the American fleet, 
under, Dewey, to the neighborhood, and gave Germany forty- 
eight hours in which to withdraw from Venezuela. This rather 
peremptory proceeding was successful. Germany withdrew ; 
but from that time, we are told, her naval officers were deeply 
interested in finding the best plan for attacking New York.^ 

For Further Reading. — Dawson's Bismarck and State Socialism 
and Russell's German Social Democracy are good treatments of theii* 
subjects. Davis' Roots of the War is especially good upon this old Ger- 
many, pp. 24-38, 162-248. 

Review Exercise. — Make a " brief," or outline, for the history of 
Germany from the French Revolution to the World War. Do the like 
for France and for England. 

1 Davis, Roots of the War, p. 360. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

< 

ITALY SINCE 1870 

The constitution of Italy is essentially that given to Sar- The govem- 
dinia in 1848. It provides for a limited monarchy of a liberal ™®°* 
kind. By custom, as in France and England, the ministries 
are "responsible." That is, they resign when they no longer 
have a parliamentary majority. Local government and the 
courts are patterned upon the French model. 

Until 1882, a high property qualification was requirecf for 
voters, — so that only one grown man in seven had the fran- 
chise. At that date, after two years' agitation, the franchise 
was given to all who could read and write, or who paid certain 
rents, or four dollars in direct taxes. This still shut out more 
than half the adult males. With the progress of education, 
however, the proportion of voters slowly increased ; and in 
1913 a new law established virtual manhood suffrage. 

In 1861 Italy had no schools except those taught by reli- Education 
gious orders. In the next twenty years a fair system of public 
education was built up. Primary education is gratuitous, 
compulsory, and regulated by the state, but attendance is not 
well enforced. In 1861 seventy-four per cent of the population 
over six years of age could not read or write. In 1881 this per- 
centage of illiterates had fallen to sixty-two, and in 1901 to " 
fifty-six. The higher educational institutions are excellent, 
and Italian scholars hold a foremost place in science and 
history. 

The kingdom of Italy at its birth was far behind the other The crush- 
great states of Europe. Its proper tasks were to provide for "^^ ^"^^ 
public education, to repress brigandage, to build railroads, to 
foster useful industries, to drain malarial swamps and reclaim 
abandoned lands. In all this, much progress has been made ; 

525 



526 



ITALY SINCE 1870 



Taxation 



Agitation 
and politics 



but the government has been hampered by its poverty and by 
its tremendous expenditures for mihtary purposes. 

Italy was freed by force of arms, in 1859-1861. The new- 
born state, for many years more, feared that the work might 
be undone by France or Austria; and to the present time 
(1919) she has maintained the usual European military system, 
with longer terms of active service than were required in Ger- 
many or France, though she has been much less able to endure 
this burden than were those richer countries. 

Taxation is crushing ; and yet, much of the time, the govern- 
ment can hardly meet expenses. For many years before the 
World War, a fourth of the revenue went to pay the interest 
on the national debt, and a large part of the rest was for military 
purposes, leaving only a small part for the usual and helpful 
purposes of government. To make ends meet, the government 
has been driven to desperate expedients. Salt and tobacco 
are government monopolies ; the state runs a lottery ; and 
taxation upon houses, land, and incomes is so exorbitant as 
seriously to hamper industry. Thus, canning fruit should 
be a highly profitable employment; but the government tax 
on sugar makes that industry impossible. The financial and 
military problem is the great question before Italy. 

Economic distress led to political and socialistic agitation. 
The government at first met this by stern repressive legislation. 
Socialists and Republicans were imprisoned by hundreds, often 
on the charge of being anarchists ; and for years at a time large 
parts of Italy were in "state of siege," or under martial law. 
The Radicals and Socialists, however, gained slowly in the 
parliament; and after 1900 violent repression was given up. 
Then at once it appeared, as in France, that the Socialists were 
a true political party ; and of late years they have been strong 
even in the ministries. 

A large emigration leaves Italy each year, mainly for Brazil 
and the Argentine Republic. Partly in hope to retain these 
emigrants as Italian citizens, the government took up a policy 
of securing colonies. Indeed the new-born kingdom of Italy 



" IMPERIALISM 



527 



Italia 
Irredenta 



almost at once began to dream of renewing ancient Italian con- 
trol in the Mediterranean. Just across from Sicily lay Tunis, Army, navy, 
one of the rich but anarchic provinces of the decaying Turkish pQiQ^i^^ 
Empire. To be ready to seize this plum when ripe, Italy began empire 
to build a navy, and, at crushing cost, she finally made hers 
among the most powerful in the world. But before she was 
quite ready to act, France seized control in Tunis (1881). Bit- 
terly chagrined/ Italy then used her military and naval force 
to secure valuable territory on the coast of Abyssinia (1885). 
From 1889 to 1896, indeed, she held a protectorate over all 
Abyssinia. In the latter year an Italian army was destroyed 
in the interior, and Italian control was reduced to the coast 
district. But in 1912-1913 this loss was much more than made 
good by the seizure of Tripoli from Turkey. 

Another difficulty about territory long troubled Italy. When 
Austria gave back "Venetia" to Italy in 1867, it was not by 
any means the ancient Venetia in extent. Old Venetia had 
reached down the east coast of the Adriatic, through Dalmatia ; 
and the modern seaport, Trieste, was still largely Italian in 
blood — though the country district about it was mainly Slav. 
Italy wanted the Dalmatian coast, with complete control of 
both sides of the Adriatic. 

In this matter, right and wrong were intermingled, and an 
absolutely just solution of the problem would not have been 
easy, even if all parties had wanted one. But another part of 
the same trouble was simpler as to right and wrong. "Lom- 
bardy," redeemed in 1859, certainly should have included the 
Trentine district on the south slope of the Alps, with its purely 
Italian population. This district Austria held unjustly — 
through the favor of Napoleon III ; and this "Italia Irredenta" 
("Unredeemed"), along with the unredeemed Trieste, was a 
constant source of danger to European peace. 

Italy has also a serious problem in the relations of state and 
church. Almost all Italians are Roman Catholics ; but the 

' Note on the map how Italian control of Tunis would have made the 
Mediterranean two lakes ruled by Italy, and see p. 593. 



State and 
church 



528 ITALY SINCE 1870 

government and the pope have been hostile to each other ever 
since the Kingdom of Italy was established. The clergy, of 
course, in the main adhere to the pope, while the great mass 
of the people earnestly support the government. 

In 1870, when Italy took forceful possession of Rome, Pope 
Pius IX protested against the act as a deed of brigandage — 
though the citizens of Rome had ratified the union with Italy 
by a vote of ninety to one. The government has left the papacy 
every power it thinks consistent with the territorial unity of 
Italy. The pope is not an Italian subject, but, in all matters 
of form, is an independent sovereign, though his territory has 
been reduced to a single palace (the Vatican) and some small 
estates. Within this domain he keeps his own court, main- 
tains his own diplomatic service, and carries on the machinery 
of a state. A generous annual income is also set aside for him 
by the government of Italy. The clergy and church through- 
out Italy are left by the government to manage their own 
affairs as completely as in the United States, except that 
the state pays the salaries, in compensation for the church 
lands it has seized. 

In common with many zealous Catholics, however. Pope 
Pius IX felt that to exercise his proper influence as head of 
the church, he must be also an independent temporal prince. 
He refused to recognize the Italian state or to have anything 
to do with it, never left his palace grounds, and he styled 
himself the "Prisoner of the Vatican." His successors (1919) 
have followed this policy. For some time, no doubt, it was 
possible that in case of a general European war, Austria might 
restore the papacy as a temporal principality. The hope of 
some such result may have been back of the pope's failure to 
speak out against the crimes of Germany and Austria in the 
World War. Certainly the position of the papacy was not 
strengthened by its attitude in that struggle. Nor did the 
Italian priesthood show a patriotism in any way like that of 
the persecuted French priests. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

THE SMALL STATES OF CENTRAL EUROPE 

This long chapter is necessary for the understanding of Europe to-day. 
But it is suggested by the author that the class read it and talk it over with 
the teacher, tvithout being held strictly responsible for its contents. Then, 
when necessary, the student can turn to it for reference. 

I. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, TO 1914 

Down to the World War, Austria remained " a tangle of races A " tangle 
and a Babel of tongues." The peoples spoke eleven distinct '*'^®^ 
languages, besides numerous dialects. A fourth of them were 
German (11 millions); a fifth Magyar, or Hungarian (9 mil- 
lions) ; the rest were Italians, Jews, lUyrians, or Slavs. These 
Slavs made half the population, but they were broken up into 
many sub-races (p. 393 and map). 

We have seen how the counter-revolution of 1849 restored German 
absolute despotism to the central government, and crushed out f"''^i^**^^ 
all self-government in Bohemia and Hungary. In these non- 
German districts, for years, only the German language was 
allowed in the schools, the press, or the courts. For a Bohe- 
mian to publish a paper in his native language was a crime. 

Naturally Bohemia and Hungary hailed with delight the Austria wins 
defeat of Austria in 1859 by France and Italy. The Emperor f/fj"^™*''* 
Francis Joseph felt compelled to introduce liberal reforms, and 
so Austria was given a parliament. But the subject peoples 
remained unsatisfied; and after the next overthrow of Austria 
(by Prussia, in 1866) it was plain that something had to be done. 
The German element was not strong enough to rule alone. 
Accordingly the strongest two elements in the Empire joined 
hands to help each other keep control over all the other ele- 

529 



530 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY TO 1918 



The " dual- 
monarchy," 
1867-1918 



Aspirations 
of subject- 
peoples 



Some 
progress 
before 
1914 



ments. The Emperor and the Hungarian leaders arranged a 
selfish bargain — which remained the constitution of Austria- 
Hungary down to 1918. 

Austria-Hungary became a dual monarchy, a federation of 
two states. Each half of the Empire had its own constitution 
and its own parliament. The two halves had the same monarch 
and a curious kind of a common legislature. These arrange- 
ments of 1867 sacrificed the Slavs. The Germans remained 
dominant in the Austrian half of the Empire, and the Magyars in 
the Hungarian half. The union of the two was not due to any 
internal ties between them, but wholly to selfish fears. With- 
out Hungarian troops the Austrian Germans and their Emperor 
could not any longer hold Bohemia in subjection; and with- 
out Austria to support her, Hungary would lose her border 
Slav districts and perhaps be herself absorbed in Slav Europe. 

But of course such a union was one of unstable equilibrium. 
Bohemia ceased not to demand, if not independence, at least 
that she be admitted into the imperial federation as an equal 
third state. The Poles of Austria and of Hungary hoped for 
a revival of an independent Poland. The Italians longed to 
be annexed to Italy. The Roumanians of eastern Hungary 
wished to be joined to free Roumania. The Croats and Slovaks 
desired independence or union with Serbia. With the progress 
of humanity and education, toward the twentieth century, it 
became less possible for the two dominant races to use the 
old cruel methods to keep down the subject peoples. For 
many years, historians had ventured to prophesy that a general 
European war, if one came, would probably end this ill-sorted 
conglomerate state. 

In domestic matters, before the World War, the Austrian 
part of the empire had taken two great steps forward. (1) 
In 1868-1869 the German Liberals in the parliament secured 
laws for complete religious liberty for all men. These laws 
also took from the church its old control over marriage and the 
schools. The population is almost wholly Catholic ; but it 
has supported this anti-clerical legislation, against even the 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



531 



severe condemnation of the pope. (2) In 1906, after many 
years of agitation, full and equal manhood suffrage was secured 
for local elections and for the lower House of the national parlia- 
ment. 

The parliament, however, contained twenty-eight distinct 
parties, largely on a basis of race jealousies. The election of 
1913 made the Christian Socialists far the largest of any one 
party, giving them 96 members out of a total of 516. But the 
war, following almost at once, showed the parliament to be 
absolutely powerless for all purposes of real government. 
It was not in anyway consulted when the Emperor and his ad- 
visors brought on the war ; and it was at once dissolved, and 
no new parliament allowed to meet for more than a year. 



II. SPAIN 

Before 1800 the ideas of the French Revolutionists began 
to filter into Spain, but their welcome was confined to the small 
educated class. Napoleon's attack broke down the old mon- 
archy and gave these Liberals a chance. They took the lead 
in the War for Independence (1809-1813) ; and, in the midst 
of that struggle, the Cortes drew up the famous Constitution 
of 1812 (p. 310). 

Then followed the restoration of the cruel and suspicious 
Ferdinand VII, his treacherous overthrow of the constitution, 
its restoration by the revolution of 1820, and the armed inter- 
vention of the despotic Holy Alliance in 1823 (pp. 340, 343). 
For the next ten years the Liberals were persecuted vigorously. 
To own a foreign book was a crime. In 1831 a young man was 
hanged in Madrid for shouting "Hurrah for Liberty!" and a 
woman met the same fate for embroidering on a flag the words, 
"Law, Liberty, Equality." 

Ferdinand died in 1833 ; but, for forty years more, Spain 
passed from revolution to revolution, — none for liberty, each 
for some ruler or military chieftain. During the middle half 
of the century Spain had many "paper constitutions" but no 
constitutionalism. The government was "government by 



Constitu- 
tion of l8l2 



Despotism 
from 1815 
to 1833 



" Govern- 
ment by 
revolution," 
1833-1873 



532 SPAIN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

revolt." Every change was brought about by a coup d'etat. 
The many successive militar}^ revolutions, however, were marked 
by surprisingly little bloodshed. It has been wittily said that 
during this period "revolution in Spain became a fine art." 
When an administration had grown sufficiently unpopular, 
some officer with docile battalions and a grievance would issue 
a " pronunciamento " declaring the existing government dis- 
solved and naming the members of a new one. If the adventurer 
had counted his strength advisedly, the old government would 
vanish ; if it stayed, the revolt usually disappeared. It was 
part of the political game to know, without fighting, when one 
was beaten. Some one has said that Spaniards developed a 
delicate tact in working revolutions, as English-speaking people 
work elections, with the least possible disturbance to the affairs 
of everyday life. 

To be sure, after each of the meaningless commotions of 
these forty years, the victorious faction would "appeal to the 
nation" for sanction. But it used all the machinery of the 
government, including the police, to carry its candidates ; and 
members of an opposing party, if active, were liable to be 
mobbed by the government party (the "party of the club"), 
or, if they resisted, to be locked up "to prevent a disturbance." 
Meantime wasteful taxation and miserable misgovernment 
made the nation seethe with discontent ; and in 1868 a Liberal 
uprising expelled the ruling Bourbon line, and set up a Pro- 
visional Government. For the next few years, this govern- 
ment begged prince after prince in Europe to accept the Span- 
ish crown (cf. p. 420). 
A republic, These efforts failing, in 1873 the Liberals set up a republic, 
1873-1874 -vyrith Castelar as president. The constitution, said to have been 
drawn up in twenty-four hours, was never more than a form. 
The leaders made absurd promises which could not be kept : to 
reduce taxes, though the treasury was bankrupt ; to do away 
with conscription, though the army was demoralized and revolt 
flourished ; to abolish capital punishment, though crime was 
rampant. 



SPAIN TO-DAY 533 

But Castelar could learn ; and six months of anarchy changed 
his views. Bourbon risings were making rapid progress in 
the northern provinces ; the seaboard cities of the south had 
declared themselves independent communes, after the plan of 
Paris two years before ; taxes ceased to come in ; the remnants 
of the army were in mutiny ; the towns were at the mercy of 
ruffians, and the country districts in the hands of bandits. 
Then, in a fortunate recess of the Cortes, Castelar turned his 
vague legal authority into a beneficent dictatorship. The 
choice, he saw, lay between bayonet rule in the hands of dis- 
ciplined troops controlled by good men, and pike rule in the 
hands of a vicious rabble led by escaped galley slaves. He 
candidly abandoned his old theories, broke his foolish pledges, 
and with wise energy. brought order out of chaos. He crushed 
the communes with an army recruited by a strict conscrip- 
tion, and checked crime and anarchy by military executions 
after swift drumhead courtmartials. 

It was natural that he should be assailed as a tyrant. When 
the Cortes reassembled, his old friends passed a vote of lack of 
confidence. The commander of the troops asked for permis- 
sion to disperse the Cortes ; but, by resigning promptly, Caste- 
lar showed that he had no wish to prolong his personal authority. 
To-day no one doubts his good faith or good judgment, and 
the name of this republican statesman-author-dictator stands 
out as the chief glory of Spain in the nineteenth century.^ 

Castelar's resignation was followed by brief anarchy ; but Constitu- 

two more revolutions brought the nation to the restoration of ^^°^^ 

monarchy, 
the old Bourbon line, at the close of 1874, in the person of the 1876 

young Alphonso XII. The new government proved vigorous 

and prudent; and in 1876 the present constitution introduced 

Spain to a somewhat more hopeful period. 

The government in theory rests mainly in the Cortes. This The govern- 

body consists of a Senate and a Congress. Half the senators ™®°* 

' Castelar had been professor of philosophy in the University of Madrid 
before he entered politics, and he ranks among the great orators of modern 
times. Hannay's Castelar is a brief and interesting biography. 



534 SPAIN TO-DAY 

are elected, while the rest are appointed for life. The congress- 
men are elected by manhood suffrage (since 1890). 

The ministry is expected to resign if outvoted in the Cortes, 
but, in practice, parliamentary majorities do not yet really make 
ministries. Instead, ministries make parliamentary majorities, 
as in England a century and a half ago (p. 214). A ministry 
is formed by coalition between factions, and then it supplies 
itself with a good working majority by a new election. The 
ministry controls the elections pretty thoroughly ; but such 
things are managed more decorously than formerly. Since 
1876 no party has "called in the infantry." 
Ten years Until 1881 the energies of the government went mainly to 

°88^-°8™ restoring order. Then, for ten years, reform crowded upon re- 
form. Jury trial was introduced ; civil marriage was permitted ; 
popular education was encouraged ; the franchise was extended ; 
the slaves in the colonies were freed ; honest but vain attempts 
were made to improve the government of the colonies ; and, 
above all, so far as Spain's welfare is concerned, the system of 
taxation was reformed. 

In 1876 taxes were still levied in the wasteful, demoraliz- 
ing way characteristic of France before the First Revolution, 
and both foreign trade and home industries were strangled by 
them. Conditions are still far from ideal, but the heaviest 
shackles have been struck off. As a result, trade has mounted 
by bounds ; manufactures have developed ; railroads and 
telegraphs have been tripled. Population has doubled in 
the last century, rising from ten millions to twenty, and 
the growth has been especially rapid in the last decades. 
Above all, the number of peasant landowners is rapidly 
increasing. 

To be sure, the mass of the people are shiftless, excitable, 
bigoted. Still Spain is far from being a dying nation, as she 
is sometimes called. She is a reviving nation : and the increase 
in population and in wealth is a chief reason for the political 
stability of the last forty years. Under the new conditions, 
constant revolution would be too costly. 



SPAIN TO-DAY 535 

Until 1898, the surviving colonial empire (Cuba, the Philip- Loss of 
pines, and so on) was a drag upon progress. After 1876 a " * 
series of efforts was made to give good government and some 
measure of self-control to Cuba, which had been in incessant 
and wasting rebellion. But the problem was too difficult to 
be worked out by a country so backward at home. Corrupt 
officials oftentimes ruined the designs of the government ; and 
in any case, the colonies were already so alienated by long mis- 
government as to make the task hopeless. 

In 1894 Cuba rose again for independence. Spain made 
tremendous efforts to hold her, and for some years, at an im- 
mense cost, maintained an army of 200,000 men at a distance 
of 2000 miles from home. The warfare, however, was reducing 
Cuba to a desert ; and finally, in 1898, the United States 
interfered. The Spanish-American War resulted in the sur- 
render of all the Spanish colonies, except a few neighboring 
islands and some districts in northwest Africa. 

It may be hoped that this loss will prove a gain. The pov- Poverty and 
erty of the government has been serious. The interest charge 
on the huge national debt is a crushing burden, and until 1900 
the debt itself was constantly growing. Now that Spain no 
longer has the task of holding distant colonial possessions, she 
may conclude to reduce her absurd army system and to use the 
money for the development of the intellect of the people and of 
the resources of the land. She still has ambitions, however, 
to extend her colonial possessions in Africa ; and she long kept 
a vague hope that, in case of a general European war, she might 
regain Gibraltar. This last consideration went far to make her 
somewhat pro-German in the World War. 

Catholicism is the state religion. Though the constitution Religion 

promises " freedom of worship," no other religious services are ^ ^. 
^ '^ ^ , ^ education 

permitted in public. In this respect Spain is the most backward 
of European lands. She is also the most backward in education. 
There is a compulsory education law, but it is a paper edict. 
In 1909 a government investigation found 30,000 towns and 
villages with no public school whatever, while in 10,000 other 



536 



THE REPUBLIC OF PORTUGAL 



The Ferrer 
schools 



places the schools were in hired premises — many of them 
grossly unfit for the purpose, — connected with slaughter- 
houses, cemeteries, or stables. The teachers were poor and 
poorly paid ; and attendance was still poorer. The only 
schools in most of the country, outside these public schools, 
were "nuns' schools," teaching only the catechism and needle- 
work. Only one fourth the population could read and write. 

Spanish Liberals have wished to change all this radically, 
(1) by separating church and state, and (2) by excluding 
clerical control from the schools. But the introduction of man- 
hood suffrage in 1900 proved disastrous to such reforms. It 
strengthened the Clericals and Conservatives in the Cortes, 
because of the absolute obedience paid at elections by the 
peasants to their priests, and for many years progress in edu- 
cation and in politics has almost ceased. 

About 1900 the horrible condition of the schools roused the 
wrath of a great teacher, Francesco Ferrer. This upright and 
courageous thinker founded a "modern school" to start a re- 
form in Spanish education. His experiment was arousing 
great interest; but the Clerical party, fearing his influence, 
had him murdered judicially. The hold of the priests upon the 
working classes is so strong that in Spain, alone in European 
countries, Socialism appears only in a few large cities — and as a 
conspiracy rather than as a constitutional party. In 1910 there 
was a Socialist revolt in Barcelona. The Clericals charged 
that Ferrer had instigated this revolt. They had him tried in 
secret before a military tribunal, convicted him by the aid of 
forged papers, and killed him. "Ferrer schools" have been 
established in many lands. 



Establish- 
ment of the 
Republic 



III. THE REPUBLIC OF PORTUGAL 
In 1821, as one of the results of the Spanish revolution of 
1820 (cf. p. 341 fP.), the king of Portugal accepted a constitu- 
tion drawn up by a group of Radicals upon the model of the 
Spanish constitution of 1812. For many years, however, the 
country was distracted by revolutions, and by wars between 



BELGIUM 537 

claimants for the crown ; but about the middle of the nineteenth 
century, Portugal began to make some progress in constitu- 
tional government. Then, in 1910, a sudden uprising set up 
a republic, which so far (1919) seems stable. English influ- 
ence controls foreign relations, so that Portugal is, in practice, 
almost an English protectorate. 

Until 1910 Catholicism was the state religion. Indeed there Religion 
were only a few hundred people of other faiths in the country. *^ 
But the Republican government at once established complete 
religious freedom, confiscated the church property, and adopted 
a plan for the "separation of church and state" like that set up 
in France in 1906. Education, by law, is universal and gratui- 
tous ; but in practice the children of the poor do not attend school. 
The schools, too, are very poor. Portugal is more illiterate 
even than Spain. The chief peril to the Republic is ignorance. 

Colonies are still extensive (in the Verde islands, in Africa, 
and in India), but they do not pay expenses, and it is doubtful 
whether so poor a country can afford to keep them. Their 
administration, too, is very bad. 

National finances are in a deplorable condition. In 1893 Present 
Portugal suspended payment of two thirds of the interest on ^^° ®™^ 
her national debt. In 1894 France withdrew her ambassador, 
because of dissatisfaction at this treatment of French creditors. 
Such action gave rise to talk of possible intervention by Euro- 
pean governments in Portuguese affairs. For some years 
the government has had an annual deficit. It would seem 
that the country must give up her costly army system and 
sell her colonies. One reason for maintaining her army has 
been fear of Spain. 

Recent years have seen much distress from lack of employ- 
ment or low wages, and many strikes accompanied by riots. 

IV. BELGIUM 

The Constitution of Belgium is still that of 1831, with a 
few amendments. It has an admirable bill of rights. The 
king acts only through "responsible" ministers. 



538 



BELGIUM 



A demo- 
cratic 
franchise 



The church 

and 

education 



In 1831 the franchise rested upon the payment of a consid- 
erable tax. When the revolutions of 1848 were upsetting so 
many governments, Belgium made a slight reduction in this 
qualification for voting. For nearly fifty years there was no 
further change ; but meanwhile great city populations were 
growing up, with masses of artisans who had no votes. In 
the eighties only one man in ten could vote ; and agitation began 
for further extension of the franchise. 

The proposal secured little support in parliament, however, 
and bill after bill was voted down. In the early nineties the 
discontent of the Radicals became violent. In 1893 the Labor 
party declared a general strike, in order to exert political pres- 
sure, and the crowds of unemployed men in Brussels about the 
parliament house threatened serious riots. The militia was 
called out, but it showed a dangerous disposition to side with 
the rioters. 

The members of parliament, looking on from their windows, 
changed their minds, and quickly passed a new franchise 
law, providing for manhood suffrage, with plural votes for wealth 
and education. Each man was given one vote ; two votes were 
given to each man over thirty -five years of age, if he possessed 
certain wealth, or if he were the head of a family with children ; 
and three votes were given to men of high educational qualifica- 
tion and to those who had held important public office. 

The new franchise produced unexpected results. From 1850 
to 1884 the leading question in politics had been whether state 
or church should control education. The Liberals were in 
power the greater part of the time, and, by one bill after another, 
they had taken the schools wholly away from clerical influence. 

This resulted, however, in the growth of a large Clerical 
party. Then, the election of 1894 returned 104 Clericals, 
15 Liberals, and 33 Socialists. Of the two million votes cast, 
over a third tvere "plural votes,'' and these very largely reinforced 
the Clericals. A new education bill (1895) placed the public 
schools under the supervision of the church, and provided state 
support for church schools. Education continued to make 



HOLLAND 539 

progress. In 1890, 16 per cent of the army recruits could not 
read or write ; in 1910 the number was only 9 per cent. The 
Clerical party in Belgium is enlightened and progressive. 

Belgium has ranked for many years among the leading in- 
dustrial nations. In 1910 the population was seven and a 
half million — more than double that in 1815. The people 
were happy, contented, and prosperous. Then for more than 
four years (1914-1918) this little land was made the battle 
ground of the terrible World War ; and its splendid heroism 
and unparalleled sufferings have excited the admiration and the 
sympathy of the civilized world (cf. pp. 614 ff.). \t this writing 
(1919) the only political change due to the war is the recent, 
introduction of simple manhood suffrage with the abolition of 
all plural votes. This promises a new era of democratic reform. 

V. HOLLAND 

The royal family of Holland belongs to the great House of Government 
Orange, and the people are loyally devoted to it. The present 
sovereign is Queen Wilhelmina, who came to the throne in 1890 
at ten years of age. The upper House of the States General 
(the parliament keeps that ancient name) is chosen by the local 
legislatures of the various provinces for nine years, one third 
going out each third year. This plan of partial renewals of a 
branch of the legislature has been adopted in many countries, 
as in the Senate of the United States, but it seems to have orig- 
inated in Holland some centuries ago. 

The House of Representatives (lower House of the States 
General) is elected directly by the people. Since 1896 about 
three fourths of the adult men have votes, — nearly all except 
paupers, vagabonds, and unmarried sons in poor families. 
The monarchy has been of the Prussian rather than the English 
type, until recently ; but during the long minority of the girl- 
queen the ministries began to be truly " responsible" to the Repre- 
sentatives. 

The country is rich and prosperous. The population (six Wealth and 
millions in 1910) has grown in the last century even faster P''°^P^''' ^ 



540 DENMARK 

than that of Belgium. The colonial empire, despite great losses 
in the Napoleonic wars, is still vast and productive. 

VI. DENMARK 
To the In the later Middle Ages, Denmark was an elective monarchy 

Constitution distracted by feudal anarchy. In 1660, after a shameful 

of 1866 '' , . 

defeat by Sweden, it became an hereditary and absolute mon- 
archy. In 1848 the king felt obliged to grant a paper constitu- 
tion ; but not until after the defeat ^ of 1864 did Denmark 
begin to have real constitutional development. A Demo- 
cratic party ("Friends of the Peasants") then began to demand 
reform, and, after two years of clamor, a constitution was 
established. 

Government This constitution of 1866 promises freedom of speech and 
of the press, and creates a Diet (Rigsdag) of two Houses. The 
Landthing, or upper House, is composed partly of members 
appointed by the king, partly of members elected on a very high 
property basis. The Folkthing, or lower House, is elected. In 
1901 the vote was given to all self-supporting men, thirty years 
of age, and in 1915 it was extended to all men and most women. 
In 1901, after a thirty years' contest, ministries were made 
responsible to the Representatives. 

Cooperation Denmark is the special home of cooperation among farmers. 

and the 'pj^g \a.nd is not naturally fertile. The people, until after the 

high schools .,„„,. , , . 

middle 01 the nmeteenth century, were poor and ignorant. 

Agriculture was backward. The defeat by Prussia and Austria 

in 1864 left the little state disrupted and impoverished. Its 

people were forced to seek some escape from their condition. 

A new system of schools pointed the way. Denmark con- 
tains 15,000 square miles with two and three quarter millions 
of people. That is, it has more people than Indiana, in less 
than half the territory. More than a third of these people 
are farmers. For them, ninety-eight high schools give in- 
struction in agriculture and domestic economy, — twenty of 
the ninety-eight being special schools in agriculture. Most of 

' Compare with the case of Austria after 1866, and France after 1870. 



NORWAY AND SWEDEN 541 

these schools, too, give special "short courses" in the winter, 
and these are largely attended by adult farmers and their 
wives. The schools are not merely industrial ; even the short 
courses emphasize music and literature. They aim to teach 
not merely how to get a living, but also how to live nobly. 
And they have taught the Danish farmers the methods of 
successful cooperation. To-day Denmark is one of the most 
progressive and prosperous farming countries in the world. 

Local cooperative societies are found in almost every dis- 
tinct line of farm industry, — in dairying, in the hog industry, 
in marketing of eggs, in breeding cattle, in producing improved 
seed, in securing farm machinery, in loaning one another money 
(farm credits), and so on. The local societies are federated 
into national organizations. The central society that markets 
eggs and dairy products has an office in London as well as in 
Copenhagen, and owns its own swift steamers to ply daily 
between the two capitals. Little Denmark supplies England's 
forty millions with a large part of their eggs, bacon, and butter, 
— $10,000,000 worth, $32,000,000 worth, and $50,000,000 
worth, respectively, in IQIL 

Thanks to intelligent methods of farming, and of handling 
produce, these Danish articles command the top price in the 
London market; and, thanks to the cooperative system, the 
profits go to the producers, not to middlemen. Best of all, 
the Danish peasant, on eight or ten acres of land, is an educated 
man, cultured because of his intelligent, scientific mastery of 
his work. In 1891 an enlightened Old-Age pension system was 
adopted. 

The cooperative movement in agriculture is found also, in 
only a slightly smaller degree, in Belgium, Holland, Norway, 
and Sweden, — all the other small states of Northern Europe. 
The movement is making much progress, too, in France. 

VII. NORWAY AND SWEDEN 
The Congress of Vienna, in 1814, took Norway from Den- 
mark and gave it to Sweden (p. 330), to reward that country 



542 NORWAY AND SWEDEN 

The for services against Napoleon. But the Norwegian people 

"union " of ^jgclined to be bartered from one ruler to another without 
their own consent. A Diet assembled at Eidvold, declared 
Norway a sovereign state, adopted a liberal constitution, and 
elected a king {May 17, 181 4). Sweden, backed by the Powers, 
made ready to enforce its claims, but finally a compromise was 




A Norwegian Fjord, — Sogudal. 

arranged. The king abdicated, and the Diet elected the Swed- 
ish king as king of Norway, on condition that he should recognize 
the new Norwegian constitution. 

Thus Norway and Sweden became a dual monarchy. The 
union was looser, however, than that of Austria-Hungary. The 
two countries had the same king, -but they had no common 
ministry and nothing to correspond to the Austrian-Hungarian 
imperial parliament. Each kingdom kept its own constitution 
and its own legislature. 
Norway's The arrangement lasted almost a century. But there was a 

struggle for gj-Q^ying chasm between the two lands. Sweden had a strong 

self-govern- o o , • ^ • kt 

ment aristocracy and a considerable city population. Norway even 

then had only a weak aristocracy, and was a land of independ- 



NORWAY AND SWEDEN 543 

ent peasants and sturdy fisherfolk. The national legislature Storthing 
(Storthing) assembles as one house, but divides itself for most ^'^ ^°^ 
purposes into two chambers. The king of the dual state could 
not dissolve it, and, according to the constitution, a bill became 
law in spite of his veto, if passed in three successive annual 
sessions. In the early part of the century the Storthing suc- 
ceeded in abolishing nobility in Norway, after two vetoes by the 
king, and in 1884 it established manhood suffrage against his 
will. 

The chief interest in Norwegian politics in the nineteenth 
century lay in the agitation for a greater amount of self-govern- 
ment. Except for one period of about thirty years in the 
middle of the century, the contest was incessant, and after 
1872 it grew bitter. 

In 1872-1874 the Storthing passed a bill three times, re- 
quiring the ministries to resign if outvoted. King Oscar II 
declared truly that this was an amendment to the constitution, 
and therefore a change in the compact between the two coun- 
tries. In such a case, he urged, the rule limiting his veto 
could not apply, and he declined to recognize the law. The 
Storthing impeached the ministers. Civil war seemed at hartd ; 
but a new election in 1884 showed that the Norwegians were • 
almost unanimous in the demand, and the king yielded. 

Oscar II came to the Swedish throne in 1872, just before 
the Norwegian national movement became violent ; and 
his moderation and fairness had much to do with prevent- 
ing an armed conflict, which impetuous men on either side 
were ready to precipitate. He was one of the greatest men 
who sat upon European thrones in the last century. For- 
eign nations paid a deserved tribute to his ability and 
fairness, by requesting him frequently to act as arbitrator 
in international disputes. The United States was inter- 
ested in some of these arbitrations. 

After this victory of 1884, the real executive, for all internal 
affairs in Norway, became Norwegian, not Swede. The Stor- 



544 



NORWAY AND SWEDEN 



Norwegian 
independ- 
ence 



Norway 
leads in 
Woman 
suffrage 



thing passed at once to a demand for power to appoint Norwegian 
consuls, separate from the Swedish service. This demand also 
seemed to the king to involve a change in the constitution, — 
which put the regulation of foreign affairs into his hands, — and 
the Swedish party exclaimed that the proposed arrangement 
would ruin the slight union that remained between the two 
countries. 

The struggle waxed vehement. In the course of the con- 
test the Norwegians removed the symbol of union from their 
flag (1886-1888), after passing the bill to that eifect each year 
for three sessions, and both countries at times made prepara- 
tions for war. Indeed, Norway erected a costly line of forti- 
fications on the frontier toward Sweden. 

In May, 1905, when once more a long negotiation for separate 
consular service had failed, the Storthing, by unanimous vote, 
provided by its own act for Norwegian consuls. This was vir- 
tual secession, and the king refused to recognize it. The 
Storthing then declared the union dissolved. The aristocratic 
element in Sweden called for war; but King Oscar was nobly 
resolute that his two peoples should not imbrue their hands in 
each other's blood. The Swedish labor-unions, too, threatened 
a universal strike, to prevent violent coercion of their Norwegian 
brethren. In July the Norwegians declared in favor of inde- 
pendence in a great national referendum, by a vote of 368,000 
to 184. Sweden bowed to the decision. In September, 1905, to 
the eternal honor of both peoples, a peaceful separation was ar- 
ranged upon friendly terms. 

Thus Norway became an independent nation. A small party 
wished the new nation to become a republic ; but, in a second 
referendum, a large majority declared for a monarchy and 
chose a Danish prince (Haakon VII) for king. 

In 1901 the Storthing gave the franchise in all municipal 
matters to women who paid (or whose husbands paid) a small 
tax. In 1907 the parliamentary franchise was given to the 
same class of women. Thus, Norway was the first sovereign 
nation to give the full franchise to women. Women, too, 



NORWAY AND SWEDEN 545 

sit in the Storthing. There is a strong demand for the exten- 
sion of the franchise to all women on the same terms as men, — 
a demand certain to be granted in the near future. 

Norway has two and a half milhons of people ; Sweden, more 
than twice as many. Sweden is also the richer country. The 
Norwegians, however, have the larger merchant navy, — more 
than four times as large as Sweden's, and the fourth in size in 
all Europe. This was one reason why, during the "Union," 
Norway felt it had a special interest in controlling the consular 
service. Norwegian authors, like the novelist-statesman Bjorn- 
son and the poet Ibsen, stand in the front ranks of European 
literature, and such facts, no doubt, helped to make Norwegians 
discontented with their recent political inferiority. 

Until late in the nineteenth century Sweden was backward Swedish 
in politics. The diet was made up, medieval fashion, of four 
estates — nobles, clergy, burgesses, and peasants — and the 
king could always play off one class against another. In 1866 
this arrangement was replaced by a modern parliament of two 
Houses, but for nearly half a century more the franchise ex- 
cluded a large part of the adult males. Agitation for reform 
began vehemently in 1895. Seventeen years later, the right to 
vote for members of the lower House of the parliament was 
given to all adult men, but with many " plural" votes for wealth. 
At the same time women secured the franchise for all matters 
of local government. Then in 1919, with the surging rise of 
Democracy throughout the world, sweeping reforms abolished 
plural voting and established simple universal suffrage for 
men and women in both national and local affairs. 



reform 
since i866 



CHAPTER XL 

THE SW^ISS REPUBLIC 

Condition Switzerland deserves a chapter to itself. The Congress of 

in 1830 Vienna left the Swiss cantons in a loose confederacy (p. 332), 

not unlike that of the United States before 1789. The origi- 
nal "Forest Cantons" were pure democracies. They governed 
themselves (as some do still) by folkmoots, — primary assem- 
blies of all the people. In Bern, Luzern, and some other of 
the rich "City Cantons," a few families had complete posses- 
sion of the government, so that the rule was an hereditary 
oligarchy. But in 1830, after the success of the French revo- 
lution, popular risings established liberal local constitutions 
there also. 
The Bonder- The next change grew out of religious strife. The re- 
biind War organized cantons of 1830 were Protestant, and now they be- 
came radical in politics. The old democratic cantons were 
Catholic, and were coming to be controlled by a new Clerical 
party. The confederacy seemed ready to split in twain. 
Some individual cantons, too, were torn by civil strife. Swit- 
zerland was organized in two camps. 

The final struggle began in Aargau. In this canton, in the 
election of 1840, the Radicals won. The Clericals rose in 
revolt. To punish them, after suppressing the rising, the 
Radicals dissolved the eight monasteries of the canton. This 
act was contrary to the constitution of the Union ; and the 
seven Catholic cantons in alarm formed a separate league, 
— the Sonderbund, — and declared that they would protect 
the Clericals in their rights in any canton where they might 
be attacked. 

For the Sonderbund to exist at all was practically to dissolve 
the union. In 1847 the Federal Diet, now controlled by the 

546 



THE SONDERBUND WAR — 1847 547 

Radicals, ordered the Sonderbund to dissolve. The Sonderbund 
withdrew its deputies from the Diet, and "The Sonderbund 
War" was begun (1847) — seven cantons against fifteen. The 
despotic Powers of the Holy Alliance were preparing to inter- 
fere in behalf of the Sonderbund, and did furnish it with 
arms and money ; but the Unionists (warned and encour- 
aged by the English government) acted with remarkable 
celerity and crushed the Secessionists in a three weeks' cam- 
paign, before foreign intervention could begin. Metternich 
still intended to interfere, but the revolutions of 1848 rendered 
him harmless. Then the Radicals remodeled the constitutions 
of the conquered cantons, so as to put power into the hands 
of the Radicals there, and adopted a new national constitution. 

There are many interesting points of likeness between the 
civil war in Switzerland and that a little later in the United 
States. In both countries there was a conflict between 
a national and a states' sovereignty party. In both, as a 
result of war, the more progressive part of the nation forced 
a stronger union upon the more backward portion. In both, 
too, the states which tried to secede did so in behalf of rights 
guaranteed them in the old constitution, which they be- 
lieved to be endangered by their opponents. 

By the new constitution of 1848, which with slight amend- The Consti- 
ments is that of to-day, the union became a true Federal Republic. 

The Federal Assembly (national legislature) has two Houses, 
— the Council of the States and the National Council. The first 
consists of two delegates from each canton. The delegates are 
chosen by the cantonal legislatures, by whom also their term 
of office is fixed and their salaries are paid. This Council 
represents the states' rights principle, and in form it is a survival 
of the old Diet. 

The other parts of the constitution, however, are new, and 
tend toward nationalism. The second House of the legislature, 
the National Council, represents the people of the union. The 

members are elected in single districts, like our Representatives, 

p 



tution 



548 



THE SWISS REPUBLIC 



for a term of three years. The franchise is given to all adult 
males, and elections take place on Sundays, so that all may vote. 
The Federal Executive is not a single president, but a com- 
mittee of seven {the Federal Council), whose members are 
chosen by the Federal Assembly. One of the seven, especially 
named for the purpose, is the "President of the Council" ; but 




Interlaken, a typical Swiss town. 



he possesses little more authority than the other members. The 
Federal Council acts much as an English ministry, but it 
cannot dissolve the legislature, and it need not resign if its 
measures are rejected. 

There is also a Federal Judiciary, chosen by the Federal 
Assembly; but it lacks the power of our American Supreme 
Court to declare laws void : it is bound to accept as valid all 
acts of the legislature. 

Each canton, like each of our States, has its own constitution 
and government. In a few cantons the old folkmoot, or pri- 



DIRECT LEGISLATION 549 

mary Assembly, is still preserved ; in the others the legislature 
consists of one chamber, chosen by manhood suffrage. In each 
there is an executive council. 

As a rule, even in modern democratic countries, the people Direct 
govern themselves only indirectly. They choose representa- ^^isation 
tives (legislatures and governors), and these few delegated 
individuals attend directly to all matters of government. 
Democratic thinkers, however, demand that some way be 
found for the people themselves to take a direct part in law- 
making; and Switzerland v/as the first country to show how 
"direct democracy" can work under modern conditions. The 
two Swiss devices for this end are known as the referendum 
and the popular initiative. 

The referendum is the older. It consists merely in referring The 
laws that have been passed by the legislature to a popular vote. Referendum 
This practice really originated in America. The State of 
Massachusetts submitted its first constitution to a popular vote 
in 1778 and in 1780, and there were a few other applications 
of the principle in America at about the same time. A little 
later, the French Revolutionists adopted the practice for their 
constitutions ; and the plebiscites of the Napoleons extended 
the principle to some other questions besides constitutions. 
The French Constitution of the Year I provided for a referen- 
dum on ordinary laws ; but this constitution never went into 
effect. In America, after 1820, nearly all our States used the 
referendum on the adoption of new constitutions and of con- 
stitutional amendments ; and sometimes other important meas- 
ures were submitted to popular decision, both in State and 
city governments. 

But Switzerland taught the world how to go farther than 
this. By the Constitution of 1848, all constitutional amend- 
ments, cantonal or national, must be submitted to popular vote, 
and in some cantons this compulsory referendum is extended to 
all laws; while, by an amendment of 1874, a certain number 
of voters hy petition may require the submission of any national 
law. This last provision is known as the optional referendum. 



550 



THE SWISS REPUBLIC 



The 
Initiative 



and it has been in use in the separate cantons for most of the 
nineteenth century. 

The popular initiative is a purely Swiss development. It 
consists in the right of a certain number of voters, by petition, 
to frame a new bill and to compel its submission to the people. 
A little before 1848, this device began to be regarded as the' 
natural complement of the referendum. Four cantons had 
already made some use of it, and the new Constitution of 1848 
required all cantons to permit it on constitutional amendments, 
if a majority of voters so petitioned. 

The cantons themselves rapidly adopted more generous 
measures than this ; and, by 1870, in nearly all of them a small 
number of voters could introduce any law they desired. In 
1891, by amendment, this liberal principle was adopted for the 
national government : a petition of fifty thousand voters may 
frame a law, which 7nust then be submitted to a national vote. 

Thus the people can act directly, without the intervention 
of the legislature. They can frame bills by the initiative, and 
pass on them by the referendum.^ These devices for direct 
legislation are the most important advances made in late years 
by democracy. Recently, many of the more progressive States 
of the American Union have carried them (with the further 
device of the recall) to a higher degree of perfection even than 
in their Swiss home. 



Place in 
history 



Switzerland fills a far larger place in history and in human 
interest than her territory fills on the map. Since 1848 the 
Swiss have been one nation. The defeated party quickly ac- 
cepted the result of the Sonderbund War in good faith, and 
now all Swiss look upon one another as fellow-countrymen. In 
the last half-century Switzerland has made amazing advances, 
and to-day it is one of the most progressive countries in the 
world. The schools are among the best in Europe : no other 
country has so little illiteracy. Comfort is well diffused. No 



* A good account of the referendum and initiative in Switzerland is given 
in Seignobos, Europe Since 1814, 271-279 and 283-284. 



PLACE IN HISTORY 551 

other country to-day gives such complete equality of opportu- 
nity in industry and in politics. The population increases 
rapidly, and in 1896 it numbered three and a third millions. 
The army system is a universal militia service, lighter than 
has been known anywhere else in continental Europe during 
the last forty years. 

Two thirds of the people are German ; but French and 
Italian, as well as German, are "official" languages, and the 
debates in the Federal Assembly are carried on in all three 
tongues. Race feeling, which is so disintegrating a force 
in Austria, ivories no harm in Switzerland. The universal 
patriotism of the people is a high testimonial to the strength 
of free institutions, and of the flexible federal principle, in 
binding together diverse elements. Says President Lowell, of 
Harvard, "The Swiss Confederation, on the whole, is the 
most successful democracy in the world." 

For Further Reading. — Seignobos' Europe Since 181. i, 255-284, 
or Hazen's Europe Since 1815. Fuller accounts, of interest and great 
value, may be found in Lloyd's A Sovereign People and Crawford's 
Switzerland of To-day (1911). 



CHAPTER XLI 



THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE INTO AFRICA AND ASIA 



New world- 
problems 



Partition of 
Africa 



Toward the year 1900, European politics were suddenly 
merged in world politics. The possession of pett}^ counties on 
the Rhine or the Danube ceased to interest peoples who had 
fixed their eyes on vast continents. 

Australia was already English. North America was held by 
the United States or England. South and Central America 
were protected beneath the shield of the Monroe Doctrine. 
Africa, however, was largely unappropriated, and in Asia the 
stationary and apparently helpless empires of China, Turkey, 
and Persia invited attack. 

The division of the vast African continent was swift and 
peaceful. In 1880 only a few patches here and there on the coast 
were European ; in 1891 the continent was mapped out between 
European claimants.^ 

For half a century, France had been extending her sway 
over Algeria on the north. For nearly double that time England 
had held Cape Colony on the south ; and the events of 1881 
(p. 468) put the Nile valley under English control. A generation 
earlier the explorations of Livingstone, an English missionary, 
and of Stanley, an American newspaper correspondent, had 
awakened interest in the heart of the "Dark Continent." In 
the early seventies Stanley proved that the upper Congo ex- 
tended far into the interior, and that the immense region in the 
center of Africa was a rich and accessible country. In 1876, 
at the suggestion of King Leopold of Belgium, the Congo In- 
ternational Association was organized to explore Central Africa 

1 Caldecott's English Colonization, 112, has a good map illustrating the 
transformation of this decade of years. Note also the dates on the map in 
this volume, facing page 553. 

552 



EUROPE DIVIDES AFRICA 553 

and to stop the horrible slave trade carried on by the Arabs ; 
and in 1879 Stanley, in the service of Leopold and the Associa- 
tion, returned to the upper Congo and made the beginnings of a 
European state there. 

In 1884 Bismarck called an international Congress at Berlin 
to consider conditions in Africa. As a result, the " Congo Free 
State" was formed, with a territory of 1,000,000 square miles, 
and with some thirty million native inhabitants. It was placed 
under the administration of Belgium : but it was pledged to 
neutrality and to free trade with all nations. 

The establishment of the Congo State, and the Berlin Con- 
ference, were followed by the raising of the German flag in Africa 
(p. 520) ; and then began a wild scramble for territory, which 
quickly left all the continent European, except Abyssinia and 
Liberia. In 1900 the three leading European Powers in Africa 
were England, France, and Germany. Of these England was far 
in the lead. Aside from small territories at other parts on the 
coast, her sway extended over the whole Nile valley (the richest 
part of the continent) and over extensive territories in the south. 
Her ambition was to unite her possessions north and south ; 
but the Congo State and German East Africa were thrust be- 
tween. However, an English railway was got under way to 
join Cairo and Cape Town. 

France would have liked to join her realms on the east and 
on the west of the continent ; but she found English territory 
thrust in between. German ambition was thwarted in like 
manner. The three Powers seemed to have checkmated one 
another's efforts to dominate Africa. 

The occupation of Asia by European states proceeded more Europe in 
slowly than that of Africa, but with increasing rapidity. Cen- ^^'* 
tral and Northern Asia is Russian. The great, densely popu- 
lated peninsula of Hindostan, with adjoining Burma, is English. 
The southeastern peninsula, since 1896, is mainly French. The 
only independent states left in this greatest of the continents 
in 1900 were Asia Minor (Turkey), Persia, Afghanistan, Siam, 
and China. 



554 "GREATER EUROPE" 

Of these, Afghanistan and Siam were mere remnants of 
"buffer states," separating England from Russia on one side 
and from France on the other. Persia, too, was virtually a de- 
pendency either of England or Russia, according to the varying 
fortune of those countries ; and in the closing years of the nine- 
teenth century it seemed that even the ancient Chinese Empire 
had begun to go to pieces. In those same years two new actors 
appeared upon the stage of world politics. A war between 
Japan and China, and the Spanish-American War, added the 
United States and Japan to the group of World Powers inter- 
ested in China. 

Until the year 1900 the United States found scope for its 
energies in peopling its great territories and in developing re- 
sources at home. Content with leadership on the American con- 
tinents, it resolutely kept out of European complications. But 
the Spanish-American War left it in possession of the Philip- 
pines ; and during the war it annexed Hawaii. Thus it held 
the mastery of the Pacific and was brought to the door of Asia, 
In particular, the United States then became desirous to secure 
a fair show for its trade in China, one of its important customers. 

The similarity of English and American views regarding 
China, and the likeness of the English and Americans in poli- 
tics and culture, inclined the two peoples to act together in the 
East, in opposition to Russia and Germany. Both those 
countries had always treated their dependencies as estates to 
be managed for the benefit of the peoples possessing them. 
This low standard had long since been rejected by the English- 
speaking nations. Thus a broad human interest was given to 
the question as to which group of powers should impose its 
civilization upon the industrious but passive millions of China. 

In 1899, President McKinley's Secretary of State, John 
Hay, sent a note to all the Powers interested in China urging 
them to agree that no one of them should shut out citizens 
of other lands from its "sphere of influence" there. This 
"open door" policy, forcefully supported by America and 



JAPAN AND CHINA 555 

England — and by all the small commercial countries — 
had much to do just then with preventing the complete 
dismemberment of China. Of course the main incentive 
of American policy was the wish to keep rich Oriental 
provinces open to American trade. But this policy — per- 
fectly proper in itself — fell in happily with the interests 
of humanity. The main hostility to the American policy, 
in ways both open and secret, came from Kaiser William of 
Germany — so that in a moment of extreme irritation. Hay 
exclaimed " I had almost rather be the dupe of China than 
the chum of the Kaiser." 

The victory of Japan over Russia (below) introduced still Japan 
another factor into the problem. Until the middle of the nine- 
teenth century, Japan had kept herself sealed to the outer world. 
For more than two centuries, indeed, to hold communication 
with foreigners had been a capital crime. But in 1853, Commo- 
dore Perry, under orders from the United States Government, 
by a show of force secured the admission of American trade to 
certain Japanese ports ; and Japan began swiftly to exchange her 
Oriental civilization for Western culture. Before the close of 
the century army and navy, schools and industry, took on 
modern character ; and in 1889 a liberal Mikado (emperor) 
proclaimed a constitution which created, in form, a limited 
monarchy, with a parliament of two houses and a responsible 
ministry. 

In 1894-1895 Japan and China engaged in war over Korea. 
With amazing rapidity little Japan overcame her huge antago- 
nist on land and sea. China agreed to cede the island of For- 
mosa, Port Arthur, and the kingdom of Korea. The Russian 
Tsar, however, was already longing for these districts, and, 
backed by France, he forced Japan to renounce her gains upon 
the mainland. Japan was unprepared for war with these 
powers, and was wise enough to yield, but she began at once to 
make ready, patiently and skillfully, for the struggle with Russia 
which was to come ten years later (p. 557). 



556 



EUROPE AND CHINA 



European 
Powers and 
China 



The Boxer 
risings 



The Russ- 
Jap War, 
1904 



In return for her interference against Japan, Russia secured 
from China the right to extend her Trans-Siberian railroad 
through Manchuria (p. 576). Then in 1898 she secured Port 
Arthur, the strongest naval fortress that China possessed. 
Roused by this advance of her rival, England at once demanded 
and obtained Wai-hei-wai, on the opposite shore of the Gulf, 
to enable her to check Russian movements. Somewhat earlier 
(p. 522), on a curious pretext, Germany had seized Kiau Chau, 
with the surrounding district ; and now France seized the port 
of Kwang-Chau-Wau. Still earlier, France had begun to occupy 
the far southeast, and England had held the island of Hong Kong 
ever since 1842; but the recent seizures commanded Peking 
itself, and it began to look as if China were doomed to partition. 

In 1900 the Chinese resentment at this prospect culminated 
in popular patriotic and fanatical uprisings which sought to 
exterminate the "Western barbarians." The movement was 
organized by a secret society known as the Boxers. Mission- 
aries and scattered Europeans were massacred and the foreign 
embassies themselves were besieged at Pekin. The Powers 
(the United States and Japan included) sent joint forces to re- 
lieve their beleaguered representatives. After horrible and 
almost incredible barbarities by some of the invading armies, 
especially by the Russians (and by the Germans when they 
arrived late), Pekin was taken and sacked and the European 
residents were rescued. 

Largely through the insistence of the United States, the 
indemnities from China were taken in money — in moderate 
amounts — instead of in territory. During the campaign, 
however, Russia had occupied Manchuria. She claimed that 
such action was necessary to protect her railroad there, and 
promised to withdraw at the return of peace. In 1902 this 
pledge was solemnly repeated ; but, before 1904, it was clear 
that such promises had been made only to be broken, and that 
Russia was determined not to loosen her grasp upon the coveted 
province. Moreover, she began to encroach upon Korea. To 
Japan this Russian approach seemed to imperil not only her 



THE RUSS-JAP WAR, 1905 557 

commercial prosperity (in Korea), but her independence as a 
nation. After months of futile negotiations, and a pressing 
ultimatum for Russian withdrawal, Japan resorted to war. 

Diplomacy had assured Japan that she would have only Rus- 
sia to fight. England and Japan, in 1902, in a treaty designed 
to preserve the integrity of China, had agreed to aid each 
other in war if either were attacked by more than one Power. 
Still the case for Japan looked dark. To most of the world, 
Russian advance in Asia seemed irresistible, and the little 
island-state seemed doomed to defeat. 

But Russia fought at long range. She had to transport 
troops and supplies across Asia by a single-track railroad. Her 
railway service was of a low order (like all her forms of engineer- 
ing), and her rolling stock was inferior and insufficient. Con- 
gestion of traffic and long delays at critical moments were 
the inevitable results. To be sure, it was supposed that im- 
mense supplies had already been accumulated at Port Arthur 
and in Manchuria, in expectation of war; but it proved that 
high officials of the autocracy had made way with the larger 
part of the money and that neither army nor navy was properly 
equipped. Inefficiency, corruption, lack of organization, were 
matched only by boastful overconfidence and silly contempt for 
the foe. These drawbacks could not be counterbalanced by 
Russia's immense but unavailable resources nor by the des- 
perate bravery and heroic endurance of her poorly led soldiery. 

Japan, on the other hand, had the most perfectly organized 
army, hospital service, and commissariat the world had ever 
seen. Her leaders were patriotic, honest, faithful, and always 
equal to the occasion ; and the whole nation was animated by 
a spirit of ardent self-sacrifice. By her admirable organiza- 
tion, Japan was able, at all critical moments, to confront the 
Russians with equal or superior numbers, even after, a year of 
war, when she had rolled back the battle line several hundred 
miles toward the Russian base. 

At the outset, Japan could hope for success only by secur- 
ing naval control of Asiatic waters. Russia had gathered at 



558 



THE RUSS-JAP WAR, 1905 



Yalu, Port 
Arthur, and 
Mukden 



Togo's 

naval 

victory 



Treaty of 
Portsmouth 



Port Arthur a fleet supposedly much stronger than Japan's 
whole navv ; but {February S, IOO4) Japan struck the first 
blow, torpedoing several mighty battleships and cruisers. 
The rest of the Russian fleet was blockaded in the harbor ; 
and, to the end of the war, Japan transported troops and sup- 
plies by water almost without interference. 

Korea was swiftly overrun. The Russians were driven 
back from the Yalu in a great battle, and again defeated at 
Liaou Yang ; and after a seven months' siege, marked by terrible 
suffering and reckless sacrifice on both sides, the Japanese cap- 
tured the "invulnerable" Port Arthur (January, 1905). 

The severe northern winter interrupted the campaign; but 
in March, 1905, the Japanese resumed their advance. The 
Battle of Mukden was the most tremendous military struggle 
the world had seen. It lasted fifteen days. The battle front 
extended a hundred miles, and a million men were engaged, 
with all the terrible, destructive agencies of modern science 
at their command. The Russians were completely routed. 
They lost more than a hundred thousand men, and were driven 
back on Harbin in disorder. 

Russia's only chance was to regain command of the sea. 
During the winter of 1905, after a year of delays, a huge fleet, 
far exceeding the Japanese navy in number and in size, but 
poorly equipped and miserably officered, had set out on the 
long voyage from the Baltic. By a breach of neutrality on the 
part of France, it was allowed to rest and refit at Madagascar, 
and again at the French stations near Southern China ; and in 
May it reached the Sea of Japan. There it was annihilated 
by the splendidly handled Japanese fleet, under Admiral Togo, 
in the greatest of the world's naval battles. 

Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, now 
"offered his good offices" to secure peace; and a meeting of 
envoys was arranged (August, 1905, at Portsmouth, N. H.), at 
which the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed. Japan's demands 
were exceedingly moderate, and she yielded even a p^rt of 
these at President Roosevelt's urgent appeal for peace." Russia 




100 I/mgltude 80 VMt aO from 40 dnnmUb 30 



THE RUSS-JAP WAR, 1905 559 

agreed (1) to withdraw from Chinese Manchuria, (2) to cede 
the Port Arthur branch of her railroad to China, (3) to recog- 
nize a Japanese protectorate in Korea, and (4) to cede to 
Japan . the southern half of Sakhalin, — an island formerly 
belonging to Japan but occupied by Russia in 1875. 

The most important results of the war were indirect results. 
Russia was checked in her career of aggression in Europe 
and toward India, as well as in the Far East, and the collapse 
of her despotic government gave opportunity for the begin- 
ning of a great revolution in society and politics (p. 584). 
The appearance of Japan, on the other hand, as one of the 
foremost "World Powers," went far to check European greed 
for Asiatic territory. 



CHAPTER XLII 



Growth of 
constitu- 
tionalism 



THE PROMISE OF A NEW AGE BEFORE 1914 

The twentieth century opened with glowing promise of 
a new era — despite such gloomy shadows as we have 
noticed in remote and ill-known regions like the Balkans. 
The rate of human progress had been accelerating tremen- 
dously. The nineteenth century had seen more change 
than the thousand years before. Theodore Roosevelt's 
day was farther removed from Napoleon's than Napoleon's 
was from Charlemagne's. In this mighty transformation of 
the world, the three main agents had been democracy, scien- 
tific invention, and humane sentiment. 

I. DESPOTISM VANISHING 
As late as 1830, we have seen, England, Switzerland, and 
Norway were the only Old-World countries which were not 
absolute despotisms ; and these countries were far from being 
the democracies they are now. During the remaining two 
thirds of the nineteenth century, constitutional government 
spread eastward from England through Europe, and west, 
from the United States to Japan. In 1900 Russia and little 
Montenegro (with the possessions of f urkey) were the only 
European states still unaffected by the movement. The re- 
maining independent states of Asia — Turkey, Persia, Chma, 
and Siam — were still despotic. But in 1913 Siam was the 
only sovereign state on this earth without a representative 
assembly and some degree of constitutional government. The 
early revolution in Russia has been treated. In the other lands 
of the East the change had come even more peacefully — but 

perhaps even less perfectly. 

560 



CONSTITUTIONS IN TURKEY AND PERSIA 561 

A " Young Turk" party appeared in the more civilized parts In Turkey 
of the Turkish Empire soon after 1900, agitating for a parha- 
ment. Early in 1908 its leaders organized an executive com- 
mittee with headquarters at Saloniki. In July the Saloniki 
committee published a constitution and demanded that the 
Sultan accept it. 

The army officers were largely "Young Turks," and the 
Sultan felt constrained to yield. In December of the same 
year the first Turkish parliament met, with magnificent cere- 
mony. Foreign countries, however, embarrassed the movement 
seriously. Bulgaria seized this moment to turn her nominal 
dependence into absolute independence, and Austria formally 
annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina (p. 595). Conservati\'e Turks 
accused the Young Turks of carelessly permitting this dismem- 
berment of the empire, and a reactionary revolution broke out ; 
but the arm}' remained loyal to the constitution, and suppressed 
the revolt with little bloodshed. Constitutionalism, however, 
took no real hold upon the people. 

In Persia, in 1906, the enlightened portion of the people in Persia 
were demanding a parliament so loudly that the monarch (Shah) 
called one, and issued a constitution. On his death, however, 
in 1907, his son bombarded the parliament house and arrested 
the liberal leaders. The provinces broke into revolt ; and, in 
May of 1909, the Shah felt compelled to restore the constitution. 
The revolutionists then proceeded to depose him, seating on the 
throne his son, a boy of thirteen. The country has so far re- 
mained distracted by revolts and disorder. 

More amazing still is the revolution which siviftly changed In China 
vast "changeless China" into a republic. In the closing years 
of the nineteenth century, Western ideas began to spread 
among a small educated class in the empire ; but the ruling 
dynasty (the Manchus) and the mass of the people were still 
hostile to reform. The dynasty, however, became hated as a 
result of national humiliations in the war with Japan and 
the Boxer war and in the seizure of territory by European na- 
tions ; and then the marvelous victory of Westernized Japan 



562 DECLINE OF ABSOLUTISM 

over Russia reinforced the advocates of Western civilization for 
China. In 1909 the regent (Empress Dowager, whose Em- 
peror-son was still a babe) promised a constitution "in the 
near future." The agitation of the Liberals forced her to fix 
the date first for 1915, and then for 1913. But this was not 
soon enough. In 191 1 Central China rose in revolution, to make 
the many provinces of the empire into a Federal Republic. 

The movement spread with marvelous rapidity, and m a 
few weeks the Republicans were in possession of the richest 
and most populous parts of the empire. They soon set up a 
provisional republican government, at Nanking, under the 
presidency of an enlightened patriot, Dr. Hun Yat Sen. In an 
attempt to save the monarchy, the Empress then issued a con- 
stitution, and called to power a moderate reformer, Yuan Shih 
Kai (yoo-an she ki). When it quickly appeared that this was 
not enough, the Manchus abdicated. Yuan Shih Kai estab- 
lished a provisional republican government at Peking, and 
opened negotiations with the Nanking government. To re- 
move all hindrance to union, the noble Sun Yat Sen resigned. 
Then the two provisional governments elected Yuan Shih Kai 
president of the "Republic of China." 
China a In April, 1913, the first Chinese parliament assembled, rep- 

Republic resenting 400,000,000 people, or a fourth of the human race. 
The president, however, proved self-seeking and reactionary. 
Leading Liberals in the army and in poHtics were assassinated, 
supposedly by his orders, and it is even yet not sure that the 
country has gained more than a military dictatorship. A vast 
population like that of China cannot leap into civilization and 
true freedom in a day. Moreover, one of the saddest results of 
the Japanese encroachments still progressing (1919) is the im- 
petus they give to a growing militarism, for self-defense, in China. 

II. SCIENTIFIC AND MORAL PROGRESS 
Three eras Still more marvelous than political advance was the scientific 
of invention advance — and the way in which it changed its character, 
after I7S0 Ancient science was the plaything of philosophers: modern 



AN AGE OF INVENTION 



563 



science now became the servant of mankind. The close of 
the eighteenth century saw those inventions in England that 
created the age of iron, substituted steam and machinery for 
hand power in production, and so created the "Industrial 
Revolution" (pp. 356 ff.). Toward the middle of the 19th 
century came a second remarkable burst of scientific invention, 







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f')ur/esy of the Carnegie Steel Comvany. 
Forging a Railway Car Axle To-day, at the Howard Axle Works, Home- 
stead, Pa. The drop-hammer, about to strike the white-hot axle, weighs 
three and one-half tons. Fourteen such hammers are used in these 
works. 

in which America led, again revolutionizing daily life and in 
particular applying machinery to farm production (pp. 366-369). 
Then, toward the close of that same century came the third 
group, replacing the age of steam by the age of electricity, and 
transforming once more the face of the world, and the daily 
habits of vast populations, before the eyes of men still under 
middle age. Gasoline engines and electric engines furnished new 
power for locomotion, for factory, and for field. Man explored 



564 



PROGRESS IN SCIENCE 



the sea bottom in submarines and conquered the air. The 
electric street railway, the automobile, and auto trucks made 
for cleaner city streets, better country roads, and a vast saving 
of time and labor. Electric lights helped to banish crime along 
with darkness. Telephone, phonograph, wireless telegraphy 
gave men new power to do and to enjoy. And along with 
this went such a transformation of all earlier machinery and 




Courtesy of the Carnegie Steel Company. 
Shearing off Steel Slabs in Modern Industry. 



Progress in 
medicine 



processes as made those of 1850 merely quaint curiosities for 
museums. 

It remains to mention, for this last period, the new relation 
of science to medicine. In the 80's the French- biologist, Pasteur, 
broke the way, proving the germ theory of disease, and invent- 
ing methods of inoculation against some of the most dreaded 
forms, like hydrophobia. Devoted disciples followed in his 
footsteps. During the American occupation of Cuba after the 



WAR UPON DISEASE 



565 



Spanish-American war, Major Walter Reed showed that ordi- 
nary malaria and the deadly yellow fever alike were spread by 
the bite of mosquitoes. In like manner it has been proved 
that certain fleas, carried by rats, spread the bubonic plague. 
In 1903 Dr. Charles W. Stiles proved that the inefficiency and 
low vitality of the "poor Whites" in the southern United States 
were due to the parasitic hookworm. The special causes of 
typhoid and tuberculosis have become well known ; and as this 
passage is being written, the germ that causes the dreaded 




Electric Enoine. — The 20th Century Limited of the New York Central. 

infantile paralysis has been discovered. Each such discovery 
has enabled men to fight disease more successfully. It is not 
improbable that in the not distant future all deadly contagious 
diseases may be practically banished from the earth, — as, ac- 
cording to medical journals, yellow fever is just now banished. 
Between 1850 and 1900 the average human life in civilized 
lands was lengthened by a fourth, and population was trebled. 



III. SOCIAL UPLIFT 
This larger and better life of the twentieth century, too, is 
bound together, for good and for ill, in a new human solidarity. 



566 



SOCIAL PROGRESS 



A dark 
side 



Our big world is more compact than the small world of 1800 
was. Ox-cart and pack-horse have been replaced as carriers 
by long lines of cars moving thousands of tons of all kinds of 
freight swiftly across continents, while now the more precious 
articles and mails begin to be moved as by magic in airships, 
as Tennyson dreamed when in his youth he — 

" Saw the heavens fill with commerce — argosies of magic sails, 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales." 

New methods of banking make it possible to transfer credit 
in an instant, by wire or wireless, between the most distant 
portions of the earth ; and lines of communication are so or- 
ganized that it costs no more to send a letter or parcel around 
the earth than around the nearest street corner. The Minne- 
sota farmer's market is not Minneapolis, but the world. The 
Australian sheep-raiser, the Kansas farmer, the South African 
miner, the New York merchant, the London banker, are parts 
of one industrial organism. 

All this solidarity means one more revolution in industry. 
The age of small individual enterprise has given way to an era of 
vast consolidation of capital and management — department 
stores, mighty corporations, huge trusts, flouring centers like 
Minneapolis, meat-packing centers like Chicago, money centers 
like Wall Street. And this consolidation has brought incalculable 
saving of wealth in economy of management and in utilization 
of old wastes into by-products. The new unity of society, too, 
has its moral side. Any happening of consequence is known 
within the hour in London, Petrograd, Pekin, New York, San 
Francisco, and, within a day, in almost every hamlet where 
civilized men live. A world opinion shapes itself, in ordinary 
times, as promptly as village opinion could be brought to bear 
upon an individual citizen a century ago. 

But even before the horrible catastrophe of the World War, it 
was plain enough that all this modern progress had a darker side. 
True, there was more life, and better life ; and there was more 
wealth to support life. The workers, too, though they got too 



DEMAND FOR "SOCIAL JUSTICE" 567 

little of that wealth, got vastly more than they got in 1800. 
An industrious, healthy artisan of to-day usually has a more 
enjoyable life than a great noble a century ago. Still the in- 
dustrial organization which produced wealth with gratifying Failure as 
rapidity failed to distribute it equitably. The world had be- ^^y°^^ ^ 
come rich ; but multitudes of workers remained ominously wealth 
poor. Even in the most democratic countries, about nine 
tenths of the increased wealth was held by one tenth the 
population, while at least two tenths of the people were reduced 
to a stage of poverty that imperiled both health and decency. 
The apex of the social pyramid contained real captains of 
industry, but it contained also pirates and parasites. Service 
to society had less to do with its revenue than plunder and 
privilege had. The broad base of the pyramid contained multi- 
tudes whose poverty resulted from physical or mental or moral 
lack ; but it contained other multitudes of willing, hard-working, 
sober men and women denied a chance at comfortable and happy 
life. And this modern poverty is harder to bear than that of 
earlier times because it is less necessary. Then there was 
little wealth to divide. Now the poor man is jostled insultingly 
by ostentatious affluence and vicious waste. 

Throughout the civilized world earnest men and women. The demand 
as never before in history, had begun to band themselves into !°'" ' social 
many kinds of "social uplift" organizations to relieve or remove 
this misery. Until toward the close of the nineteenth century 
such movements were mainly charitable in their character. 
Then they began to work, not merely to cure the social disease, 
but to remove its cause. They ceased to call for charity, and 
began to work for social justice — for such an organization of 
industry as should secure to the worker a larger share of the 
product of his labor and so insure him against the need of char- 
ity. Enlightened thinkers and statesmen entered upon a new 
and more promising "War against Poverty," recognizing also 
that such a course was necessary, not merely for the welfare 
of the poor, but also for the salvation of all society. Said Lloyd 
George in the English House of Commons in 1913 : 



568 



ATTEMPTS TO AVOID WAR 



"You have hundreds of thousands of men working un- 
ceasingly for wages that bring them barely enough bread 
to keep them and their families from starvation. Gener- 
ation after generation they see their children wither, from 
lack of air, light, and space — denied them by other men 
who have square miles of space to spare. You forget that 
divine justice never passed by a great wrong. You can hear 
now, north, south, east, west, an ominous rumbling. The 
chariots of retribution are drawing nigh." 



The Triple 
Alliance 



Bismarck 
prefers 
Austria to 
Russia 



IV. MAKING "ALLIANCES" FOR PEACE 

By 1910, Europe had fallen into two hostile camps, the Triple 
Alliance and the Triple Entente. 

1. Before Bismarck fell from power, he had built the Triple 
Alliance. After 1871 he sought to isolate France, so as to keep 
her from finding any ally in a possible "war of revenge." To 
this end he cultivated friendship with all other European Powers, 
but especially with Russia and Austria. Austria he had beaten 
in war only a few years earlier (1866) ; but he had treated her 
with marked gentleness in the peace treaty, and the ruling 
German element in Austria was quite ready now to find backing 
in the powerful and successful German Empire. 

Soon, however, Bismarck found that he must choose between 
Austria and Russia. These two were bitter rivals for control 
in the Balkans. The Slav peoples there, recently freed from 
the Turks, looked naturally to Russia, who had won their 
freedom for them, as the "Big Brother" of all Slavs and all 
Greek religionists. But Austria, shut out now from control 
in Central Europe, was bent upon aggrandizement to the south. 
In particular her statesmen meant to win a strip of territory 
through to Saloniki, on the Aegean, so that, with a railroad 
thither, they might control the rich Aegean trade. If Serbia 
were able to fulfill her dream of a South Slav state reaching to 
the Adriatic, she would interpose an inseparable Slav barrier 
to this plan, right across the path of Austria's ambition. Ac- 
cordingly Austria sought always to keep Serbia weak and small ; 



"ALLIANCES FOR PEACE" 569 

while Russia, hating Austria even more than she loved the 
Balkan Slavs, backed Serbia. 

This rivalry between Austria and Russia became so acute 
by 1879 that there was always danger of war; and in that 
year Bismarck chose to side with Austria as the surer ally. 
Accordingly he formed a definite written alliance with Austria 
to the effect that Germany would help Austria in case she had 
a war with Russia, and Austria would help Germany in case she * 
were attacked by France and any other Power. 

Three years later, Bismarck drew Italy into the league, Italy drawn 
making it the Triple Alliance. Italy was so bitterly em-aged at marck's 
the French seizure of Tunis in that year (p. 503), in flat disre- league 
gard of Italian imperialistic ambitions there, that she laid aside 
her ancient differences with Austria for a time and agreed to aid 
the Central Empires in any war in which they should be attacked 
by two or more Powers — in return for backing in her colonial 
ambitions. 

2. Then Russia and France, each isolated in Europe, drew The Dual 

together for mutual protection into a "Dual Alliance" (1884). ^a°ce of 

But Bismarck hoped to draw England into his "triple" league; 

and his hope was not unreasonable. In the eighties and 

nineties, England and France were bitter rivals in Africa, 

and England and Russia, in Asia. England, however, clung 

to a proud policy of "splendid isolation." Then, after Bis- England's 

marck's fall, she began to see in the German Emperor's colonial " splendid 

. . . , isolation" 

ambitions a more threatening rival than France ; and Russia's 

defeat by Japan made Russia less dangerous. German mili- 
tarism was deeply hateful to English democracy, and Germany's 
new commercial activity threatened England's trade, while the 
new navy that the Kaiser was building could be meant only to 
work England's destruction. Moreover, England and France 
were daily coming to a better understanding, and in 1903 a 
sweeping arbitration treaty put any war between them almost 
out of question. Soon afterward, England and Russia suc- 
ceeded in agreeing upon a line in Persia which should sepa- 
rate the "influence" of one Power in that country from the 



570 



EUROPE IN TWO CAMPS 



The Triple 
Entente 



The al- 
liances and 
peace 



A costly 
peace 



"influence" of the other, so removing all immediate prospect 
of trouble between the two (1910). 

From this time the Dual Alliance became the Triple Entente 
— England, France, and Russia. England was not bound by 
definite treaty to give either country aid in war; but it was 
plain that France and Russia were her friends, and that she 
could not look on quietly and see her friends crushed by Ger- 
many — which was showing marked hostility to her. 

Each of the two huge armed leagues always protested that 
its aim was peace. No doubt many men in both — and nearly 
all in one — did shrink from precipitating a conflict between 
such enormous forces under the new conditions of army or- 
ganization, quick transportation, and deadly explosives. For 
half a century (1871-1914), except for the minor struggles in 
the half-savage Balkans, Europe rested in an "armed peace." 

But this "peace" was based upon fear, and it was costly. 
Year by year, each alliance strove to make its armies and navies 
mightier than the other's. Huge and huger cannon were in- 
vented, only to be cast into the scrap heap for still huger ones. 
A dreadnaught costing millions was scrapped in a few months 
by some costlier design. The burden upon the workers and 
the evil moral influences of such armaments were only less 
than the burden and evil of war. In every land voices began 
to cry out that it was all needless : that the world was too 
Christian and too wise ever again to let itself be desolated by a 
great war. And then came some interesting efforts to find new 
machinery by which to guard against war — in standing arbi- 
tration treaties, permanent international tribunals like the 
Hague Court, and occasional World Congresses. 



Efforts to 
avoid war 



V. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 

In earlier times an impending war was sometimes averted 
by diplomacy or by the mediation of a powerful neighbor. 
But arbitration, in the modern sense, means neither diplomatic 
negotiation nor mediation. It means adjudication of disputed 
points by an impartial body of experts resembling a law court, 



THE HAGUE CONFERENCES 571 

following the forms of a court of justice, hearing evidence and 
argument in public, and basing its decision on the merits of 
the case. 

The first arbitration of this kind in modern times was The first 
arranged by one clause ^ of the Jay Treaty of 1794 between ™**^-^ 
England and the United States. For nearly a hundred years tion " 
this sensible device continued to be used mainly by the two 
English-speaking nations ; but before the close of the nineteenth 
century it began to spread rapidly to other lands. During 
that century several hundred disputes between nations were 
settled honorabh% peacefully, and justly, by this process, — 
many of them critical disputes, which, except for arbitration, 
might easily have led to war. The student of American history 
will recall the arbitrations with England regarding the Alabama 
damages, the Bering Sea Seal Fisheries, the Venezuela territory, 
the Alaskan boundary, and several disputes concerning our 
northern boundary at the eastern and western extremities. 

But all these cases of arbitration concerned some individual 
dispute, and in each case a special treaty had to be negotiated 
before arbitration could begin — with every chance for war 
before such an arrangement could be made. This left much to 
be desired ; and the closing years of the nineteenth century saw 
agitation for "general arbitration treaties" by which nations 
might agree in advance to submit disputes to a certain court of 
arbitrators. In 1897 a treaty of this kind between England and 
the United States failed of adoption because of opposition in 
the United States Senate, though it had been recommended 
vigorously first by President Cleveland and afterward by Presi- 
dent McKinley. Then leadership in this great movement 
passed for the time away from the English-speaking peoples. 

On August 24, 1898, by order of Tsar Nicholas (a sentimental The Hague 
lover of peace), the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs handed Cwigressof 
to the representatives of the different nations in St. Petersburg 
a written suggestion for a world conference to consider some 

' Regarding the disputed boundary between Maine and Nova Scotia. See 
West's American History and Government, § 232, or Ainerican People, § 406. 



572 



INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 



Chili and 
Argentina 



means for arresting the danger of war and for lessening the 
burden of the armed peace. Out of this suggestion there grew 
the Hague Peace Conference of 1899. 

Twenty-six nations were represented, including Mexico, 
Siam, Japan, China, and Persia, — practically all the inde- 
pendent states of the world except the South American re- 
publics. Never before had any gathering so nearly approached 
a "parliament of man," and never had an international congress 
accomplished so great a work. It was not possible to put any 
limit upon armament, because the German representatives re- 
fused to consider that matter ; but agreements were reached to 
regulate the methods of war in the interests of greater humanity, 
and, in spite of German opposition, the Congress provided a 
permanent International Tribunal for arbitration between 
nations. 

No nation was compelled to submit its quarrels to this 
Hague Tribunal, but machinery was ready so that na- 
tions could escape war, without loss of dignity, if they de- 
sired ; and in the following years many important cases were 
so settled. 

The next step was for groups of nations to pledge them- 
selves to make use of this machinery, or of similar machinery. 
This pledge is the essence of a "general arbitration treaty." 
The first such treaty was adopted in South America. 

While the Hague Conference" was sitting, Chili and Argen- 
tina (which had not been invited to the Conference) were on 
the verge of war over a boundary dispute in the Andes. For 
the next two years both governments made vigorous prepara- 
tions, — piling up war taxes, increasing armaments, building 
and buying ships of war. But at the last moment a popular 
movement, led by bishops of the Catholic Church in the two 
countries, brought about arbitration ; and soon after, the 
boundary was adjusted rationally by a commission of geog- 
raphers and legal experts. So well pleased were the two na- 
tions with this individual case of arbitration that they pro- 
ceeded to adopt a "general treaty" by which they bound 



FAILURE TO DISARM 



573 



Hague Con- 
gress of 
1907 



themselves, for a period of five years, to submit all disputes 
which might arise between them to a specific tribunal. 

This was the first "general arbitration treaty" ever actually 
adopted (June, 1903). But others were already in preparation 
in Europe ; and, four months later (October, 1903), France and 
England adopted one, agreeing to submit future disputes to the 
Hague Tribunal. Others 
followed swiftly, until most 
civilized states were joined 
with one or more other 
states in such agreements, 
usually, however, with im- 
portant reservations which 
often destroyed the force 
of the agreement. 

In 1907 a Second Hague 
Conference met, at the 
suggestion of the United 
States. This time the 
South American republics 
were represented. The 
Conference extended some- 
what the work of the first 
meeting. But again Eng- 
land's proposals to limit 
navies and armies failed 
because of opposition from 
Germany and Austria. It 
was growing more and 
more plain that all these noble efforts for peace were vain unless 
supplemented by radical measures of disarmament ; and Ger- 
many's implacable opposition had made it plain that this was 
unattainable except by a better organized world. 

The year 1913, after local wars in the Balkans, saw a new Army in- 

outburst of militarism. Germanv adopted a new armv bill ""^^^es m 

^ " Europe in 

planning an increase of the army in peace from 650,000 to 1913 




The (_ hki«t of the Ande8. 

A monument of good-will standing at an 
elevation of 12,0Qp feet on the boundary 
line between Chili^nd Argentina, erected 
by the two countries to commemorate 
their arbitration of boundary dispute. 



574 GENERAL ARBITRATION TREATIES 

870,000, with an immense money appropriation.^ Three weeks 
later (July 20), France, in terror, raised her term of active 
ser\"ice from two years to three, adding fifty per cent to her 
forces under arms. Austria and Russia adopted plans for 
similar reorganization of their armies. Even little Belgium, 
alarmed at the building of German railways to her border — at 
vast expense and with no apparent purpose except for invasion 
— adopted universal military service. Each country of course 
found excuse and incitement to further eflforts in the like efforts 
by its rivals. In particular, German and Austrian papers 
published frenzied articles on the danger with which their 
countries w'ere threatened by the proposed enormous increase 
of Russia's army and by new Russian railways that apparently 
looked to an invasion of Germany, just as German roads looked 
to an invasion of Belgium and France. The "balance" of 
power was a matter of unstable equilibrium. A touch would 
tip it into universal war. 

Such was Western Europe when German autocracy and 
militarism seized a moment to try to conquer the world. For 
five terrible years, all energies went to that mighty struggle. 
To understand the huge calamity of 1914-1919 we must turn 
back once more, to look at the Slav part of Europe, which until 
just now had hardly touched our Western life. 

> The Socialists in the Reichstag voted against the army bill, but im- 
mediately afterward most of them voted for the appropriation. This in- 
consistency has a partial explanation. The new taxes bore hea\ily upon large 
incomes and upon the landlords. The Socialists had long advocated this 
sort of taxation in vain. 



PART X 

SLAV EUKOPE-TO THE WORLD WAR 
CHAPTER XLIII 

RUSSIA 

Russia's destruction of Napoleon's Grand Army, in 1813, Growth of 
changed the fate of Europe and revealed her own tremendous *^"^*°'^ 
power. It became plain that the growth of this vast, aggressive, 
semi-Oriental state upon the edge of Western Europe had 
created new problems for all "Western" peoples. 

In the fifteenth century (p. 237), the Russians held only a 
part of what is now South Central Russia, nowhere touching 
a navigable sea. Expansion, since then, has come partly by 
colonization, partly by war. 

Until the time of Peter the Great, the advance was made 
almost wholly by the ceaseless movement of pioneers into the 
savage wilderness north and east. Like swarming hives, 
Russian villages along the frontier sent forward bands of 
people, each band to advance a little way and form a new village, 
driving out or absorbing the Tartar barbarians. On the east 
much of the advance was made by another kind of frontiersmen, 
called Cossacks. The Cossacks lived partly by agriculture, 
partly by grazing, and often they waged war on their own 
account against Turks and Tartars, somewhat as our early 
American frontiersmen won Kentucky from the Indians and 
Texas from Mexico. As early as the time of Ivan the Terrible 
(p. 237), a Cossack horde seized part of Siberia, and the move- 
ment to the Pacific was completed in 1707 by the seizure of 
Kamchatka. 

The Siberian ports on the Pacific, however, were closed by 
ice almost as continuously as Archangel on the north. Naturally 

575 



576 



RUSSIA, TO 1914 



The struggle 
for ice-free 
ports 



The Trans- 
Siberian 
Railway 



The danger 
to India 



Russia sought dutlets to the seas other than thfese frozen oceans. 
From Sweden and Poland, we have seen, she won the eastern 
Baltic coast. Peter the Great seized the southern districts 
there, up to the Gulf of Finland, and the rest fell to Alexander I 
in return for his aid to the Allies against Napoleon (p. 329). 
But the Baltic is not a true door : in time of war, its narrow 
outlets are easily closed by a hostile Power. Hence the rulers 
of Russia looked covetously toward the Atlantic ports of Sweden 
and Norway. 

Peter also began a struggle for the Black Sea, though the 
first real success there came to Catherine II (p. 239). A cen- 
tury of war against the Turks (1772-1878) made Russia mis- 
tress of the whole north and west coast, from Azof to the Dan- 
ube ; but Turkish Constantinople still closed the exit to the 
outer world, and Russian ambition long aimed at that key posi- 
tion — and the ancient capital of the Greek faith. 

In Asia, Russian advance after 1800 was steady and terrify- 
ing. She aimed at ice-free Pacific ports on the east, and at 
the Persian Gulf and the Indian seas on the south, besides the 
rich realms of Central Asia and India. Shortly after 1850 she 
came into conflict with China on the northwest. In 1858 she 
reached the Amur, seizing northern Manchuria. Two years 
later she secured Vladivostock — ice free for most of the year. 
In 1895 the Trans-Siberian Railway was begun, and in 1902 
that vast undertaking was completed to Vladivostock. This 
road is more than 5000 miles long, — nearly double the length 
of the great American transcontinental roads. Eventually 
it must prove one of the great steps in the advance of civiliza- 
tion; and it has been fitly compared in importance to the 
finding of the passage around the Cape of Good Hope or the 
building of the Suez or Panama canals. Meanwhile Russia 
had compelled China to cede the magnificent harbor of Port 
Arthur (p. 556) and the right to extend the Trans-Siberian 
Railroad through Chinese Manchuria to that port (1898). 

On the south, just after the opening of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, Russia secured the passes of the Caucasus. By the 



AREA AND POPULATION 577 

middle of the century she had advanced into Turkestan. From 
that lofty ^'antage ground she planned a further advance 
toward India. In swift succession, heedless of England's 
threats, she secured Bokhara (1868), Khiva (1873), and Merv 
(1884), despite explicit pledges to England three years before. 
These Trans-Caspian districts are in the main rich and fertile, 
with valuable mines, and with a teeming, industrious population. 
In 1893 Russia reached the "roof of the world," the vast Pamir 
plateau, and soon extended a great Trans-Caspian railway 
to within seventy -five miles of Herat, the "key to India." 
Great Britain seemed ready to resist further advance by war ; 
but a clash in Central Asia was postponed by Japan's victory 
in the extreme East. 

In the last years of the nineteenth century Russia was busied Checked by 
with vast internal improvements, — not only the great railroads 
mentioned above, from Moscow to the Pacific and to the fron- 
tiers of India, but also a stupendous system of canals to connect 
her internal waterways. She was still in a primitive stage in- 
dustrially, and these useful projects were carried on largely by 
foreign workmen and foreign capital. Under such conditions 
at home, Russia had every reason to desire peace abroad ; but 
in 1904 the arrogant folly of her military classes plunged her 
into the war with Japan, as unjust as it proved ruinous. To the 
amazement of the world, Russia's huge power collapsed utterly 
on land and sea, and she was thrust back from Port Arthur and 
Manchuria (pp. 557-559). 

In 1910 Russia covered eight and a half million square miles Extent in 
(between two and three times the area of the United States), ^^^° 
or about one seventh the area of the habitable earth ; and she 
had a population of one hundred and sixty millions, of which all 
but about thirty millions lived in Europe. (This was just about 
equal in number to the whole group of English-speaking peoples 
in the United States and the British Empire.) The popula- 
tion was made up of some seventy different nationalities, but 
the great central core, comprising over two thirds the whole, 
was composed of Russian Slavs. 



i78 



RUSSIA, TO 1914 



The sub- 
ject races 



The subject races formed only a fringe about the center, 
and were rapidly being Russianized (p. 583). The largest 
of the subject nationalities were the Poles (twelve millions) 
and the Finns (something over three and a half millions). 
There were also about five million Jews dispersed throughout 
the larger cities of the empire, especially at the seaports, and 
more than thirteen million Tartars ; but both these peoples 
were widely scattered and have never formed governments of 
their own as the Finns and Poles each have done. 



The 
autocracy 



And the 
revolution- 
ary move- 
ments 



The serfs 



And 
society 



Down almost to the world war, the government of Russia was 
an absolute despotism, — and highly centralized. In the middle 
of the nineteenth century no village could build a church or a 
school until the plan had been approved by a dilatory Board 
at St. Petersburg, and even a private house with five windows 
had to have a royal permit. But during all the century, too, 
a ferment of revolution was spreading through the land. 

At the end of the Napoleonic wars, many young Russian 
officers came back to their homes full of the ideals of the French 
revolution. The Tsar himself (Alexander I, 1801-1825) had 
been educated by a liberal French tutor ; and for a time, in a 
weak, sentimental, indecisive way, he favored a liberal policy, 
and introduced a few reforms. Metternich won him from these 
tendencies ; and then many educated and liberal Russians 
began to be conspirators against Tsarism. 

The cause of the conspirators was long hopeless, because it 
had no interest for the masses. Nowhere else in the world was 
the gap so complete between upper and lower classes. Four 
fifths the population of European Russia were serfs, hardly 
touched by civilization. They were filthy, ignorant, degraded, 
and they lived in a world wholly apart from that of the small 
class of educated Russians. 

Besides the serfs, the rural population comprised, a numerous 
nobility, who were landed proprietors ; and in the cities there 
were small professional and mercantile classes. For two 
hundred years (since Peter the Great) these upper classes had 



AUTOCRACY AND REVOLUTION 



579 



had at least a veneer of Western civilization. At the opening 
of the nineteenth century their conversation was carried on, 
not in Russian, but in French ; and their books, fashions, and 
largely their ideas, were imported from Paris. 

The revolutionary conspirators from these upper classes 
were romantic dreamers. Alexander was succeeded by his 
brother Nicholas I (1825-1855), an intense reactionary, who 
at once abandoned Alexander's mild reforms and avowed a 
policy of despotic autocracy. In December of 1825, the revo- 
lutionists attempted a rising. They met with no popular 
support, and Nicholas exterminated almost the entire group 
with brutal executions, often under the knout. This cruelty, 
however, made " the Decembrists " martyrs to the next generation 
of generous-minded Russian youth ; and their ideas lived on in 
the great Russian writers of the middle of the century, like Gogol 
and Turgeniev. 

The reign of Nicholas I was marked also by the beginning of 
the Slavophil movement. This was a revolt among the educated 
classes to establish a native Russian culture, in contrast to the 
imported Western veneer. The Russians had begun to believe 
in themselves as the future leaders of a new civilization. They 
looked forward to a vast Pan-Slav empire (to include Bohemia 
and the Slav states of the Balkans) which should surpass Western 
Europe both in power and in the character of its culture. Nich- 
olas gave his support heartily to the Slavophils, in large part 
because he despised the Western ideas as to liberty and con- 
stitutional government. The attempt to develop a native 
civilization was altogether wholesome ; but unhappily in Russia 
it was seized upon as an ally by despotism. 

In the closing years of Nicholas, however, the humiliation of 
the Crimean War (p. 406) revealed the despotic bureaucratic 
system as weak, when pitted against Western Europe ; and 
this helped the Russian liberals to win to their side the new 
Tsar, Alexander II (1855-1881). Alexander struck the shackles 
from the press and the universities, sought to secure just treat- 
ment for the Jews, introduced jury trial, established a system of 



Reaction 

under 

Nicholas 



Beginning 
of the 
Slavophil 
movement 



Reforms of 

Alexander 

U 



580 



RUSSIA, TO 1914 



Emancipa- 
tion of the 
serfs 



And the 

land 

problem 



The 

peasants re- 
enslaved 



graded representative assemblies in the provinces (the zemstvos), 
and, in 1861, against the almost unanimous opposition of the 
nobles, emancipated the fifty million serfs. 

Liberal Russia now looked for the millennium. Not only 
were the serfs freed from the jurisdiction of the nobles and from 
obligation to serve them : they were also given land. This 
of course was necessary if the peasants were to live at alL They 
had always dwelt in little village communities : in 1861 each 
village (mir) was left to manage its own local matters, and was 
given land for its support. 

The land, like the serf, was taken from the noble ; but not by 
confiscation, and not enough of it. Each mir was to pay for 
its land. The Tsar paid the noble landlord down ; and the mir 
was to pay the Tsar in small installments spread over fortj'-nine 
years. Alexander and his liberal friends intended each village to 
receive at least as much land as the villagers had had for their 
support while serfs. But the noble officials, who carried out the 
details, managed to cut down the amount of land and to make 
the price unduly high. The peasants found themselves at once 
forced to eke out their scanty income by tilling the land of the 
neighboring landlord — on his terms. The annual "redemption 
payments" to the government, too, were excessive. More than 
half the peasant's labor went to satisfy the tax-collector. By 
1890, one third the peasant body had pledged their labor one or 
more years in advance to the noble landlords — and so had been 
forced back into a new serfdom. Down to the Revolution of 
1917 the land question remained the burning question in Russia. 

Moreover, until 1907, the government held each mir respon- 
sible as a unit for taxes and land payments. This helped to hold 
the peasants to the old medieval system of farming in common, 
with the wasteful three-field cultivation (p. 67). Labor brought 
small return. The peasants remained ignorant and wretched, 
with a death-rate double that of Western Europe. As late as 
1900, half their children died under the age of five ; and every 
now and then large districts were devastated by famine — while 
vast tracts of fertile land lay uncultivated. 



THE FAILURE OF EMANCIPATION 581 

Alexander "the Emancipator" after all was almost as vacil- Alexander's 
lating in his liberalism as his father Alexander I had been. ^^^ ^ 
The peasants refused to believe that the Tsar meant them to 
pay for their land, or to give them such small allotments ; and 
in countless places they rose in bloody riots against the nobility 
and the Tsar's officers. The reactionary parts of society 
urged upon Alexander that such risings were the product of 
the progressive writers and newspapers he had encouraged. Persecution 
As early as 1862 the Tsar was won to this view. He began at °* liberals 
once to suppress the liberal press. Writers who had thought 
themselves within the circle of his friendship were imprisoned 
in secret dungeons or sent to hard labor in Siberian mines, — 
without trial, merely by decree, — and the brutal police sought 
to crush out all liberalism by barbarous cruelty. 

The liberals, in the sixties, had come to include the great The 
body of university students. These youths, — men and women ® ^ 

of good family,, — ardent for the regeneration of their country, 
now organized societies to spread information about the peas- 
ants' misery among the upper classes, and socialistic ideas 
among 'the peasants. These active Intelligentsia were cruelly 
persecuted, and in the later seventies one branch of the radicals 
decided to meet violence with violence — the only alternative 
to submission. Their secret organization was popularly known 
as the Nihilist society. They deliberately resolved to sacrifice 
their own lives to the cause of liberty, and by assassination after 
assassination they sought to avenge the barbarous persecution 
of their friends and to terrify the Tsar into granting representa- 
tive government. 

Alexander at last decided to grant part of their, demands. 
He prepared a draft of a constitution which was to set up a 
National Assembly. But the day before this plan was to be 
announced, the Nihilists succeeded in killing him with a dyna- 
mite bomb. 

Alexander III (1881-1894) returned without qualification 
to the policy of his grandfather Nicholas. What remained 
of Alexander II's reforms was undone — except that serfdom 



582 



RUSSIA, TO 1914 



Reaction 
intensified 
under 
Alexander 
III and 
Nicholas II 



could not well be restored in law. The press was subjected 
to a sterner censorship. University teachers were muzzled, 
being forbidden to touch upon matters of government in their 
lectures. Books like Green's English People and Bryce's Amer- 
ican Commonwealth were added to the long list of standard 
works whose circulation was forbidden. The royal police 
were given despotic authority to interfere in the affairs of the 
mirs. And a new emphasis was given to the Slavophil move- 
ment — which now became a ruthless organized effort to ham- 
mer into one mold all the varied populations of the Empire. 
All this reactionary policy was continued by the next — and the 
last — of the Tsars, the incompetent Nicholas II (1894-1917). 



Religious 
persecution 



And the 
Jews 



In the Slavophil movement, Autocracy and Greek Orthodoxy 
were twin oppressors. The Finnish and German Lutherans 
of the Baltic regions, the Polish Romanists, the Armenian 
dissenters, the Georgians, and the Jews were all cruelly perse- 
cuted. Children were taken from parents to be educated in 
the Greek faith ; native languages were forbidden in schools, 
churches, newspapers, legal proceedings, or on sign boards ; 
and against the Jews (who had already been cruelly crowded 
into "the Jewish Pale") bloody "pogroms" were organized 
by police officers with every form of outrage, plunder, torture, 
and massacre. 

When this persecution began, more than half all the Jewish 
race dwelt in Russia — whither they had fled in the Middle 
Ages from Western persecution. They now became the special 
objects of this new persecution. The peasants and poorer 
townsmen hated them because of their financial ability — for 
in modern Russia as in medieval England the Jews were the 
chief money lenders ; and the official classes hated them because 
a large part of the Intelligentsia and of the more radical revo- 
lutionary leaders came from the Jewish race. One brutal 
minister of the Tsar loudly proclaimed that he would stifle 
the revolutionary agitation in Jewish blood. One third the 
Jews, he said, would be forced into the Greek Church; one 



RUSSIANIZING THE SUBJECT PEOPLES 



583 



Church aids 
despotism 

Russianiza- 
tion of the 
Baltic region 



third driven into exile ; and the rest would perish of hunger and 
misery. It was this persecution that drove great numbers of 
Russian Jews to America. 

And, in return for the Tsar's aid against heresy, the Russian Russian 
priests became spies for the autocracy in its political persecu- 
tion, and betrayed to the police the secrets of the confessional. 

In one respect the Baltic districts had more cause for com- 
plaint even than the Jews. Finland, the old German provinces 
(Livonia, Esthonia, Courland), and Poland all excelled Russia 
proper in civilization, and each of them, at its acquisition by 
Russia, had been solemnly promised the perpetual enjoyment 
of its own language, religion, and laws. Russianization may 
sometimes have been a not unmixed evil to barbarous regions 
on the east ; but it was bitterly hard upon these progressive 
western districts. 

Finland, in particular, was connected with Russia only through Finland 
a "personal union" : the Tsar was also grand-duke of Finland, 
but the duch}' had its own constitution, its own representative 
Diet, and its free institutions, all guaranteed in the most sol- 
emn manner by each grand-duke at his accession. The Finns 
were industrious, peaceful, and prosperous, and gave no handle 
for interference. Still, the Slavophils finally got their way. 
In 1900 the process of making Finland a mere province of 
despotic and Slav Russia began ; and, in spite of royal pledges 
and of the sympathies of the Western world for Finland, it was 
carried on rapidly, until the last vestiges of the ancient liberties 
of this little northern land were for a time swept away. 



In 1890, the police seemed to have crushed all reform agita- Under- 

tion and all opeti criticism of the government. But there was ^^^^'^ 

Russia 

an "Underground Russia" where modern ideas were working 
silently. Many liberals were growing up among the increasing 
class of lawyers, physicians, professors, and merchants, and, 
sometimes, among the nobles. 

More important still was the fact that about 1890 Russia 
began to be touched by the industrial revolution which had 



584 



RUSSIA, TO 1914 



The Indus- 
trial Revo- 
lution 



And Social- 
ism 



transformed England a hundred years, and Germany seventy 
years, before. Moscow had been a "sacred city" of churches, 
marked by spires and minarets. In 1890, it was becoming 
an industrial center, with huge factories and furnaces, marked 
by smoke-hung chimneys. 

In such cities Socialism made converts rapidly among the 
new working class. There were two distinct bodies of these 
Russian Socialists. The larger body looked forward only to 
peaceful reform, like the Social Democratic party in other 
lands. The other was made up of Socialist-Reyolutionists. 
This was a secret society, perfectly organized, which had 
absorbed the old Nihilists. It held that violence was necessary 
and right in the struggle to free Russia from the despotism which 
choked all attempts at peaceful reform. In this day of per- 
fectly disciplined standing armies, with modern guns, open 
revolution is doomed to almost certain extinction in blood. 
So the Revolutionists worked by the dagger and the dynamite 
bomb, to slay the chief ministers of despotism. The society 
selected its intended victims with careful deliberation; and, 
when one had been killed, secretly posted placards proclaiming 
to the world the list of "crimes" for which he had been "exe- 
cuted." Spite of every precaution, the Revolutionists, with 
complete disregard of their own lives, managed to strike down 
minister after minister among the most hated of the Tsar's tools. 



The liberal 
movement 
of 1906 = 
" the First 
Russian 
Revolution " 



The opportunity of the reform forces seemed to have come 
in 1905. The failure of Russia in the Japanese war showed 
that the despotic government had been both inefficient and 
corrupt. High officials had stolen money which should have 
gone for rifles and powder and food and clothing for the armies. 
During the disasters of the war itself, other officials stole the 
Red Cross funds intended to relieve the suffering of the wounded. 
The intelligent classes were exasperated by these shames and 
by the humiliating defeat of their country, and began to make 
their murmurs heard. The peasantry were woefully oppressed 
by war-taxes. The labor classes in the towns were thrown out 



"FIRST RUSSIAN REVOLUTION," 1906 585 

of employment, or lost wages in the general stagnation of in- 
dustry. While the Japanese war was still running its disas- 
trous course, Russia was convulsed, as never before, by strikes, 
peasant risings, and mutiny in army and navy. 

For a while longer the government thought to stifle such 
popular manifestations in blood. One instance, famous be- 
cause so near the royal palace and the homes of foreign am- 
bassadors, sent a thrill of horror through the civilized world. 
A great number of loyal citizens in St. Petersburg (Petrograd) 
had sent a petition to the Tsar, asking him to hear them in 
person when, on the following Sunday, they should march to 
the palace to present their grie\ances — since they had lost 
faith in his officers. Then, Sunday morning, January 22, 1905, " Red 
dense masses of men, women, and children, wholly unarmed, ^"'^***y 
filled the streets leading to the royal palace. The Cossack 
cavalry charged these helpless throngs, and the palace troops 
mowed them down with machine guns.^ This was "Red 
Sunday." 

Now, for once, the educated classes spoke out forcefully. 
The day after Red Sunday, leading citizens of the capital 
joined in a public declaration that "the government has de- 
clared war on the Russian people " and in an appeal to all 
good citizens to support the cause of reform. For a time the 
Tsar and his advisers felt compelled to yield. In March a 
representative assembly was promised, and, soon after, the Tsar 
issued a decree guaranteeing complete freedom of speech. 

Nicholas stated, however, that the Duma (assembly) should The Tsar 
have power only to advise him, and he excluded workingmen £*^^ ^^^ 
and professional classes from the right of voting in the election. 
Then followed a general strike. In October the railways were 
idle. In the cities, stores were closed. Power houses shut 
down, and electric lights went out. This finally brought the 
government to yield. New rules were issued for the election, 
and a royal decree established the " unshakable rule " — 

' Robinson and Beard's Readings, II, 373 ff., gives a contemporary ac- 
count. 



586 



RUSSIA IN 1906 



"That no law can become binding without the consent of 
the Imperial Duma, and that the representatives of the 
People shall have a real participation in the control of the 
authorities appointed b}' us." 



Class 
divisions 
among the 
Liberals 



Reaction 
at court 



The origin 
of Soviets 



As after the Emancipation Edict forty-five years before, 
the Russian people went wild with joy and hope ; and again 
bitter disappointment followed. All Russia had seemed united 
against autocracy in demands for political reform ; but never- 
theless Russia was divided within itself by a bitter class con- 
flict. The city proletariat was struggling for radical economic 
change as well as for political reform ; especially for shorter 
hours and higher wages, for which many long-continued strikes 
were then in progress. The middle-class liberals, and espe- 
cially the employing capitalist class, hoped that representative 
government — with only the grant of more land to the peasants 
— would remedy Russia's ills. Immediately after issuing the 
October decree for the Duma, the Tsar threw himself once more 
into the arms of the reactionary official party, and sought to take 
advantage of this class division among the liberals. The prisons 
were emptied of criminals, who were then organized by the police 
as " patriots " — better known in history as the Black Hundreds ; 
and within three weeks, in a hundred different places, some 4000 
radicals and laljor leaders were assassinated. In Odessa alone, 
in a four-days official massacre, a thousand persons were killed. 

This brutal violence of the government's friends gave in- 
creased standing among the people to the radical Socialist 
movement. In all great cities there had been organized a 
Council of Workmen's Deputies to guide the strikes. These 
Councils now began to be mighty political forces. The peasants, 
too, organized Councils of Deputies in many districts, and, in 
some places, revolutionarily inclined regiments made common 
cause with peasants and workingmen, and elected Councils of 
Soldiers Deputies. This was the birth of the later famous 
Soviets — a desperate attempt to meet the Tsar's duplicity and 
brutality by a new working-class government. 



RISE OF SOVIETS 587 

But these soviet organizations at once began to antagonize Crushed for 

the liberal capitalists by ill-timed demands as to hours and *^® ^® ^^ 

. the Tsar 

wages, enforced by general strikes. Accordingly the middle 

classes held aloof, while the Tsar's government used all its 

remaining strength in the early winter to crush the new Soviets 

with an indescribably horrible vengeance. 

In April of 1906, midst gloom and anarchy, with 75,000 of The Duma 
Russia's finest men and women suffering torment in dungeons ° ^^° 
as political prisoners, the Duma was at last brought together — 
the first representative assembly of the Russian nation. The 
Tsar had arranged the elections so as to leave most weight in 
the hands of the wealthy and noble classes, and the police 
interfered acti^•ely against radical candidates ; but the revo- 
lutionary movement had swept everything before it. The 
largest party among the members were middle-class liberals, 
who called themselves Constitutional Democrats. The chief 
leader of this group was Miliukof, and it contained many other 
men .of wise and moderate statesmanship. Next in numbers * 
came the Peasants, with a program of moderate Socialism. 
The extreme Socialists of the towns had taken the name Social 
Democrats, and, under the lead of Nicholai Lenin, had in great 
measure refused to take part in the elections. Still they 
counted 25 members. Of the total of 400, only 28 were 
avowed supporters of autocracy. The Tsar's repudiation by 
the nation was complete. 

The world was amazed at the political ability of this first, 
inexperienced Russian Assembly. By practically unanimous 
vote it asked for four great political reforms, — universal 
suffrage, a "responsible" ministry, the abolition of martial 
law, and amnesty for all political offenders then in prison or 
in exile, — and for a long program of social reform, including 
the turning over of state lands to the suffering peasantry. 
All these requests were refused with insult by the Tsar, who 
had now surrounded himself with an intensely reactionary min- Dissolution 
istry. After proper persistence, the Duma wisely withdrew ^Jjjj* 
all but the agrarian demand. The Tsar announced that he 



588 RUSSIA IN 1906 

was " sadly disappointed " that the Duma insisted upon meddling 
with matters that did not pertain to it; and July 21 he dis- 
solved it, declaring that he himself would care for the needed 
reforms. ' In vain now did the Constitutional Democrats appeal 
for support to the masses — whose soviet organizations they 
had refused to help to save. 

In October, 1906, an imperial edict decreed some land reforms 
(abolishing the " redemption payments " but leaving the peasants 
insufficient land), and called another Duma for March, 1907. 
Months of anarchy followed. The government fell back upon 
stern repression and intimidation, to suppress not only disorder, 
but also political agitation. To meet this tyranny, the extreme 
Anarchy and Revolutionists resorted to a new campaign of systematic politi- 
cal assassination. The unhappy land was again distracted also 
by peasant risings and by strikes, — which were put down 
brutally by Cossack "punitive expeditions" in which thousands 
of unoffending people perished. A new famine, too, was desolat- 
ing many provinces. 

Fifty officials were assassinated in one week in August, just 
after the dissolution of the Duma, the victims ranging from 
ministers of state to petty police officers. Many others were 
wounded. During the following four months, 169 riots occurred 
and 244 bombs were thrown at officials. On the other hand, 
more than a thousand political offenders were executed, and 
fifty thousand were sent to Siberia or to prison, while the 
Revolutionists counted up 24,239 others slain by the soldiery 
in putting down or punishing riots. Prisoners were tortured 
mercilessly, and in many cases were flogged to death. 

The extremists who engaged in the desperate policy of 
assassinating government agents expected death on the scaffold 
or by torture in prison. But the government virtually pro- 
scribed also the whole Constitutional Democratic party, to 
End of the prevent its further political activity, murdering its leaders 
olution "^^ (learned and gentle scholars among them), or driving them 
into exile, or immuring them hopelessly in prison. During 



FAILURE OF THE DUMAS 



589 



the year 1906, seven hundred of the small number of Russian 
editors were prosecuted for "sedition." 

The First Russian Revolution had been stifled. True, a second The Duma 
Duma met March 5, 1907. The liberal members of the former ° ^'°^ 
assembly, so far as they were not already in exile or in the grave, 
had been made ineligible for election. But this time the Social 
Democrats went into the campaign in earnest and elected nearly 
one third the members in spite of desperate efforts of the police 
to close their meetings and imprison their leaders. With the 
remnants of the Constitutional Democrats and the Peasants, 
there was a large majority opposed to the government. In 
June the Tsar ordered the Duma to expel some sixty Socialist 
members on the ground of treason. The Duma appointed a 
committee to investigate the charge. The Tsar at once dis- 
solved it for this delay, and the police seized the accused delegates. 

Then, contrary to plain promises in 1906, the Tsar changed Later sub- 
once more the plan of elections, so as to give power very largely Dumas 
to the great landowners. The third Duma, elected on this 
new basis, met in November, 1907, and proved submissive to 
the Tsar's will. On the expiration of its term (in 1912), like 
methods secured a fourth Duma equally satisfactory to despot- 
ism. So did Russia enter the World War. 

One movement of some promise is yet to be mentioned : Finland 
The Finns had seized the opportunity of the disorders of 1905-6 ^^ iQoo- 
and forced the Tsar to restore for a time their ancient privi- 
leges. A Diet elected by manhood suffrage adopted a new 
constitution for Finland, which received the Tsar's approval 
in September, 1906. This constitution provided a single-house 
legislature elected by universal suffrage. Nineteen women 
sat in the Diet of 1907. ' 

For Further Reading. — Hazen, 645-718, or Seignobos, 578-608 
(does not cover recent years). Somewhat longer treatments are given 
in Skrine's Expansion of Russia and Nevison's The Dawn in Russia. 
Recent history — since 1904 — is covered in Spargo's Bolshevism, 
Arthur Ransom's Russia in 1919, and William Hard's Raymond 
Robins' Story of Russia. 



CHAPTER XLIV 

THE BALKANS : THE SEED PLOT FOR 'WAR 

The Balkan A century ago, all Southeast Europe, beyond Austria and 

races Russia, was part of Turkey. But the Turks were mere in- 

vaders. They were the rulers ; but they were not numerous in 
Europe except near Constantinople, and they had no part in 
European civilization. 

In no other part of the earth of so small extent was there 
such a mingling of distinct peoples — even apart from the 
Turkish conquest. The land is puckered and crumpled into 
a quaint network of interlacing mountains and valleys; and 
the inhabitants themselves were almost as much intermixed. 

The Greeks Besides the ruling Turk there were five distinct subject races. 
In the old Hellenic peninsula dwelt the Greeks, with the mem- 
ories of their ancient greatness. North of the Danube lay the 
Roumanians, proud of their legendar}^ descent from Roman 
colonists in Dacia. Their language to-day is closer to the old 

Roumanians Latin than is any other living European language, although in 
blood the people are no doubt now mainly Slav. Only half 
their race lived in "Roumania." One fourth dwelt in Bessa- 
rabia, which Russia had seized from the Turks in 1812 ; and 
another fourth were in Transylvania, which Hungary had held 
ever since she conquered it from the Turks in the eighteenth 
century. 

Albanians Between these Greek and "Roman" peoples lay the Bul- 

garians, the Serbs, and, along the Adriatic just north of Greece, 
the Albanians. These last were wild herdsmen, descendants 
of the ancient Illyrians. For the most part they had adopted 
Mohammedanism and they willingly supplied excellent troops 
for the Turkish army ; but in other respects their poverty and 

590 



INTERMINGLED PEOPLES 591 

their mountains made it possible for them to keep a rude sort 
of self-rule, without much interference from Constantinople. 
Serbs and Bulgars need a longer explanation. 

The Serbs were the leading survivors of the conquering South The Serbs 
Slavs who settled in the Balkan regions in the sixth century, divisions 
They have long been imbued with a natural ambition to restore 
their ancient empire as it stood when the Turk overthrew it in 
the fatal battle of Kossova, in 1389 (map after p. 120). But 
even more than the Roumanians, the South Slavs had been 
broken up by accidents of war. The northwestern part, the 
Bosnians, had remained independent longer than Serbia proper : 
and then, when they were conquered, their nobles became 
Mohammedans, to secure Turkish favor, though the peasants 
remained Greek Christians — like most of the subject peoples 
outside Albania. Other northern parts of Serbia, lands of the 
Croats and Slovenes, were reconquered from Turkey by Hun- 
gary in the eighteenth century, and so were no longer part of Monte- 
the home land, to which by race and language they belonged. 
Moreover, in the fastnesses of Montenegro (" Black Mountain") 
dwelt some 200,000 half-savage Serbs who had never yielded 
to the Turks, but had kept their freedom at the cost of " five 
hundred years of ferocious heroism." In Serbia itself, the Turks 
had for the most part killed off the nobles. The village life 
was left, however, much as it had been of old. The people 
managed their local matters in small democracies, and earned 
their living as farmers and herdsmen of droves of pigs. As 
in all Christian lands ruled by the Turk, oppression and cruelty 
dwarfed their civilization. 

East of Serbia, beyond a dividing mountain range, lay the The Bul- 
Bulgarians. The "Bulgars" came into the peninsula as ^anans 
conquerors from central Asia some two centuries later than 
the Slav Serbs. Originally they were baggy-trousered Asiatic 
nomads, akin to Tartars and Turks, and to-day they have in- 
tense pride in their ancient history as a race of conquerors. 
But in blood they have been so absorbed by the Slavs among 
whom they settled that there is little real difference in race be- 



592 



THE BALKANS, TO 1914 



Race 

hatreds and 
rivalries 



The four 
great Slav 
branches 



The subject 
races win 
freedom 



tween them and Roumanian on the one side or Serb on the 
other. 

Still a long history of rivalry, warfare, and mutual cruelty 
has left an intense "race" hatred between Bulgars, Serbs, 
and Greeks ; and this hatred has been made hotter by the fact 
that each one of the three has hoped to win for itself the north- 
ern Aegean coast from the decaying Turkish power. Turkish 
misrule has still further confused this perplexing picture. 
During her centuries of control, to keep Bulgarians and Serbs, 
either one, from rising unitedly against her, Turkey has trans- 
planted whole groups of Bulgarian villages into Serbia, quite 
in the fashion of ancient Oriental despotisms, replacing them 
with villages of transplanted Serbs — so that each subject 
race should always have enemies in its midst. 

This is a proper place to survey the distinctive marks of 
the four great divisions of European Slavs : (1) the Russians, 
influenced by long Tartar domination in the Middle Ages, by 
admixture with various border peoples, and by the Greek 
Church ; (2) the Poles, set off from the Russians by the adop- 
tion of Latin Christianity and by German instead of Tartar 
influence ; (3) the Bohemians and neighboring Slavic peoples, 
now known as Czecho-Slovaks, resembling the Poles in their 
history but dominated in recent centuries by Austrian Ger- 
mans; and (4) these "South Slam" of the Balkans, with a 
promising Greek influence in the early Middle Ages, followed by 
a long and crushing subjection to the Turk which has lasted in 
part to our day. 

It is unnecessary to review here the agony of the century-long 
struggle by which the subject Balkan peoples finally threw off 
the Turkish yoke, but some parts of the story must be touched 
upon. The first successful revolt was the Greek rising in 1821- 
1828. The intervention of England, Russia, and France com- 
pelled Turkey to grant Greek independence (p. 346) ; and at 
the same time Roumania and Serbia advanced to the position 
of merely tributary states, dependent upon Turkey but ruled 








^-^f i 


^^^~y^ 




S'i^ 




tS 1/ 



WINNING FREEDOM AFTER 1820 



593 



by their own princes. The Crimean War (1856) bolstered up 
the tottering Ottoman Empire for a time (p. 406), but a great 
collapse came twenty years later. At Berlin the Sultan had 
promised many reforms for his Christian subjects, but these 
promises bore no fruit ; and in 1875-1876, the Serbs in Bosnia 
and the Bulgarians rose for independence. There followed 
the horrible events long known as the "Bulgarian Atrocities." 
Turkish soldiers destroyed a hundred Bulgarian villages with 
every form of devilish torture imaginable, and massacred 
30,000 people, carrying off also thousaftds of Christian girls 
into terrible slavery. 

Then Serbia sprang to arms; and Tsar Alexander II of 
Russia declared war on Turkey (1877) — in full accord with 
the demand of his people. The universal horror in Western 
Europe at the crimes of the Turk prevented for a time any in- 
terference ; and in ten months the Russian armies held the Turks 
at their mercy. The Peace of San Stefano (1878) arranged for 
a group of free Slav states in the peninsula and for the exclusion 
of Turkey from Europe except for the city of Constantinople. 

Alexander would probably have kept on to secure Con- 
stantinople, had he not seen a growing danger of European 
interference. And even now Europe did intervene. Austria 
wanted a share of Balkan plunder ; England feared the advance 
of Russia toward her communications with India; and so the 
Peace of San Stefano was torn up. The Congress of Berlin 
(p. 457), in 1878, dominated by Disraeli, the English Conserv- 
ative, restored half the freed Christian populations to their 
old slavery under the Turk, handed over Bosnia to Austria to 
"administer" for Turkey, with a solemn provision that Austria 
should never annex the territory to her own realms ; and left the 
whole Balkan district for the next third of a century in its old 
anarchy, with only slight gains for Serbia and Bulgaria. In 
fixing responsibility for the World War of 1914, this crime of 
1878 cannot be wholly overlooked. 

We have seen (p. 458) that while the English government 
under Disraeli was chiefly responsible for that crime, the English 



" Bulgarian 
Atrocities " 
of 1876 



Russia's at- 
tempt to 
free the 
Balkans 



Interference 
by the Con- 
gress of 
Berlin, 1878 



594 



THE BALKANS, TO 1914 



Germany 
succeeds to 
England's 
place as the 
friend of the 
Turk 



people promptly repudiated it at the polls. Gladstone came 
forth from retirement to stump England against the " shameful 
alliance with Abdul the Assassin"; and at the next elections 
(1880) Disraeli was overthrown by Gladstone with huge ma- 
jorities. The wrong to the Balkans could not then be undone, 
but from this time England drew away from her old policy of 
courting Turkish friendship — wherein her place was quickly 
taken by Germany. 



In order to 
win control 
in Asia 
Minor 



Germany 
joins in 
Austria's 
policy 
against 
a " Greater 
Serbia " 



No part of Germany's non-European empire (pp. 519-524) 
interested German ambition so deeply as her advance into Asia 
Minor. This began in earnest about 1900. Germany did not 
acquire actual title to territory there ; but she did secure from 
Turkey various rich "concessions," guaranteeing her for long 
periods the sole right to build and operate great railroads and 
to develop valuable mining and oil properties. This "eco- 
nomic penetration" she expected confidently to turn into polit- 
ical sovereignty. 

To secure such concessions, Germany had sought the Turk's 
favor in shameful ways. She loaned to the Sultan German 
officers to reorganize and drill the Turkish armies, and sup- 
plied him with the most modern arms to keep down the rising 
Christian natives under his yoke — as in the Turkish war with 
Greece for Crete in 1897. And in 1895, when new Armenian 
massacres had roused England so that great public meetings 
were calling for war upon Turkey, Kaiser Wilhelm sent to the 
Sultan his photograph and that of his wife, to show German 
friendship and support. Germany knew that if she could keep 
this position of defender of the tottering Ottoman Empire, she 
could before long make that Empire into a vassal state. 

The prospect of German dominance in Asia Minor brought 
Germany and Austria into closer sympathy in their Balkan 
policies. Austria's interference in those regions had been 
purely bad. She aimed to keep the little Balkan states weak 
and mutually hostile to one another, and especially to prevent 
the growth of a " Greater Serbia," which might attract to itself 



AUSTRIA AND SERBIA 595 

Austria's dissatisfied Slav subjects. Now (1898, 1899), Ger- 
many obtained concessions from Turkey for a railway from 
" Berlin to Bagdad," to open up the fabulously rich Oriental 
trade. A powerful Serbia, through which that line must pass, 
might have checked that project. Thenceforward, therefore, 
Germany was ready to back Austria unreservedly in Balkan 
aggression, or to use her as a cat's-paw there. And in return 
for support in the Balkans, Austria permitted herself to sink 
\irtually into a vassal state of Germany, following blindly her 
lead in all other foreign relations. 

Such was the origin of the German dream of a "Mittel- The 
Europa" empire, reaching across Europe from the North Sea £^ropa" 
to the Aegean and the Black Seas, and on through Asia Minor dream 
to the Euphrates. This meant German leadership over Austria 
and Turkey and some sort of control, through them, over the 
Balkans. If this dream could be established upon a solid 
basis — and it very nearly was done — there would be cre- 
ated a supreme world power, before which states like France 
would sink into utter insignificance. 

In 1908 came a step toward fulfilling the plan. Taking ad- Austria 
vantage of internal dissensions in Turkey, Austria formally 
annexed Bosnia, in flat contradiction to her solemn pledges 
(p. 593). This was not only a brutal stroke at the sanctity of 
treaties, but also it seemed a fatal blow to any hope for a reunion 
of that Slav district with Serbia. Serbia protested earnestly, 
and was supported by Russia. But the Kaiser " took his stand 
in shining armor by the side of his ally," as he himself put it ; and 
Russia, still weak from her defeat by Japan and from her revo- 
lution of 1906, had to back down. Serbia was then forced by 
Austria's rough threats to make humiliating apologies — while at 
the same time an Austrian embargo against Serbian pork closed to 
the chief Serbian industry its only outlet to world markets, rob- 
bing it of all value. It is not strange that secret societies at once 
grew up in Serbia, pledged to hostility to the " odious and greedy 
northern neighbor who holds millions of Serb brothers in chains." 



annexes 
Bosnia 



596 



THE BALKANS TO 1914 



The Italian 
wer with 
Turkey, 
1911 



The Balkan 



Then came two events less favorable to the Teutonic designs. 

1. The first came from Italy. That state was eager to use 
the army and navy it had been maintaining at crushing cost, 
and it had long seen its ambitions for colonial empire balked. 
In 1911, seeking excuse in the ill treatment of some Italian 
traders in Tripoli, Italy declared war on Turkey and wrested 
from her that African province along with various Aegean 
islands. This act followed so closely the precedents by which 
France and Germany had been building up colonial empires 
that "Europe" was constrained to permit the deed with only 
mild protests. (Greece protested in vain that the Aegean islands 
were wholly Greek.) Italy's easy success inflamed her impe- 
rialists into putting forward programs for further expansion 
in the x\egean, in Asia Minor, and especially in Albania just 
across the Adriatic; and all of these designs were exceedingly 
distasteful to her two allies in the Triple Alliance. 

2. x\nd Italy's victory encouraged another attack upon 
War of 1912 Turkey. United action by the mutually hostile Balkan states 

had seemed impossible. But in 1912, Bulgaria, Serbia, Mon- 
tenegro, and Greece suddenly joined in a war to drive the Turk 
out of Europe — and to divide his possessions there among 
themselves. Serbia was to have northern Albania, with its 
seaports ; Montenegro, the port of Scutari ; Greece, southern 
Albania and a small strip of Macedonian coast ; and Bulgaria, 
the bulk of Macedonia. 

The allies won swift victories and in a few months were almost 
at the gates of Constantinople. Then "Europe" intervened to 
arrange the peace terms. Italy, like Austria, was hostile to a 
Greater Serbia ; and at the insistence of these powers backed 
by Germany, a new Kingdom of Albania was created, shutting 
off Serbia once more from the sea she had reached, while Mon- 
tenegro was forced, by threat of war, to give up to Albania 
Scutari, which she had conquered. Turkey was to surrender, 
mostly to Bulgaria, her remaining territory in Europe except 
for Constantinople. Germany had carried her points in this 
settlement; but her ally, Turkey, had collapsed, and events 



A SEED PLOT FOR NEW WARS 



597 



were at once to show that in siding with Bulgaria she had " put 

her money on the wrong horse." 

The treaty left Bulgaria almost the only gainer. The cheated The Second 

allies demanded that she now share her gains with them. She ^^^*° '^"• 

1913 

refused; and at once (June, 1913) followed "the Second Balkan 
War." Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Roumania attacked 
Bulgaria. The Turks seized the chance to reoccupy Adrianople, 





.NEGR 70 / .SullO 

V^CMn),^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

d (- Z _, _r" <& ^. : ; TURKEfe^ 

y J ^ ^-y- -~ \ ; (Jonsiaminopli; 




1912 



1913 



J The Balkan States. 



and were permitted to keep it. In a month Bulgaria was 
crushed, and a new division of booty was arranged. Greece 
won the richest prize, including the city of Saloniki ; but each 
of the other allies secured gains in this "July War." 

This contest left Roumania the largest Balkan state, with The Balkans 
about seven and a half million people. Then came Serbia, ^" ^9i3 
Greece, and Bulgaria, each with about four and a half million. 
Montenegro had risen to nearly a half million. Albania counted 



598 BALKAN WARS, 1912-1913 

800,000; and remaining "Turke}' in Europe," nearly two 
million. All these nations have a frightful amount of il- 
literacy, and none has much wealth. All had a legislature 
elected by manhood suffrage, but the monarchs were almost 
absolute. 

The Balkan nations came out of the two wars not only 
terribly exhausted, but hating one another with ferocious in- 
tensity. Especially did Bulgar now hate Serb and Greek; 
and each side, with too much truth, accused the other of wanton 
butcheries and outrages during the war quite as bad as had ever 
been suffered from the Turk. Serbia, too, was still cheated of 
her proper desire for an outlet on the Adriatic — her only 
natural gateway to the outside world — and she resented fiercely 
the Austrian and Italian policy which had so balked her. More 
openly than ever before, in the months that followed, enthusi- 
astic Serb patriots talked of recovering from Austria the Slav 
provinces of Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia, for a South Slav 
state ; and this talk was encouraged by hope of Russian aid, — 
a hope long fostered by secret Russian intrigue. 

To this pass the unhappy Balkan lands had been brought 
by the evil-starred Congress of Berlin, thirty-five years before, 
and by the greed and rivalries of the Great Powers since that 
time. The Balkans had been made a seed-ground for war, and 
in many ways the wars of 1912-1913 prepared the occasion for 
the world struggle that began in the next year. Austria felt 
deeply humiliated by the outcome of the Second Balkan War, 
and was planning to redress her loss of prestige by striking 
Serbia savagely on the first occasion. Prince Lichnowsky, then 
German ambassador at London, tells us now that only England's 
honest desire for peace, and her coaxing Montenegro and Serbia 
into submission in 1913 at the close of the First Balkan War, 
prevented a world war then. A year later, England's efforts 
to a like end failed. 



PART XI 

THE WAE AND THE NEW. AGE 
CHAPTER XLV 

GERMANY "WILLS THE WAR 

The occasion for the World War, we have just said, was found German 

in the Balkan situation ; but for the cause we must turn back war propa- 
ganda at 
to Germany. For nearly half a century that country had been home 

ruled by a Prussian despotism resting upon a bigoted, arrogant 

oligarchy of birth, and a greedy, scheming oligarchy of money. 

That rule had conferred on Germany many benefits. It had 

cared for the people as zealously as the herdsman cares for the 

flocks he expects to shear. But, in doing so, it had amazingly 

transformed the old peace-loving, gentle German people. 

It had taught that docile race (1) to bow to Authority, rather 
than to Right ; ^ (2) to believe Germany stronger, wiser, better 
than "decaying" England, "decadent and licentious" France, 
"uncouth and anarchic" Russia, or "money-serving" America; 
(3) to be ready to accept a program, at the word of command, 
for imposing German Kultur upon the rest of the world by 
force; (4) to regard war, even aggressive war,* not as horrible 
and sinful, but as beautiful, noble, desirable, and right, — the 
final measure of a nation's worth, and the divinely appointed 
means for saving the world by German conquest ; and finally 
(5) to disregard ordinary morality, national or individual, when- 
ever it might interfere with the victory of the "Fatherland." 

Insensibly to most of the rest of the world, this rabid and 
diseased patriotism of the Germans had become a menace to 

'Observers have often confounded this trait "with respect for law," — 
its precise opposite. 

599 



mouths " 



600 GERMANY WILLS WAR 

freedom and civilization. It was the strangest doctrine of 
national pride the world had ever heard. There were not want- 
ing German writers to claim that Joan of Arc, Dante, and Jesus 
himself owed their merits to German blood — along with like 
astounding assumptions of German descent to explain Voltaire, 
Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar. Napoleon even, it was 
urged by some enthusiastic German patriots, must have been 
descended from the German Vandals, 
s The viciousness of these German teachings about war must 

be shown briefly "out of their own mouths" : 

"Out of "War is the noblest and holiest expression of human activity. 

their own For us, too, the glad, great hour of battle will strike. Still and deep 
in the German heart must live the joy of battle and the longing for 
it. Let us ridicule to the utmost the old women in breeches who 
fear war and deplore it as cruel and revolting. No ; war is beautiful. 
Its august sublimity elevates the human heart beyond the earthly 
and the common. In the cloud palace above sit the heroes Frederick 
the Great and Bll'icher ; and all the men of action — the great 
Emperor, Moltke, Roon, Bismarck — are there as well, but not 
the old women who would take away our joy in war. . . . That is 
the heaven of young Germany ^ — Jung Deutschland, October, 1913 
(the official organ of the "Young Gterman League," an organization 
corresponding in a way to our Boy Scouts) . 

"Germany's mission is to rejuvenate exhausted Europe by a 
diffusion of Germanic blood." — School and Fatherland, 1913 (a 
school manual). 

"Our fathers have left us much to do. . . . To-day it is for Ger- 
many to arise frym a European to a world power. . . . Humani- 
tarian dreams are imbecility. . . . Right and wrong are notions 
indispensable in private life. The German people are always right, 
because they number 87,000,000 souls." — Tannenberg, Gross- 
Deutschland, 1913. 

"We are the salt of the earth. . . . God has called us to civilize 
the world. . . . We are the missionaries of human progress." — 
WiLHELM II, speech at Bremen, March 22, 1900. 

"Even in the distance, and on the farther side of the ocean, with- 
out Germany and the German Emperor, no great decision dare hence- 
forth be taken." — Wilhelm II, at Kiel, July 3, 1900. 



" OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS " 601 

"The world owes its civilization to Germany alone. . . . The 
time is near when the earth must be conquered by the Germans." 

— WiRTH, Weltmacht in der Geschichte (1901). 

" Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars, and the short peace 
better than the long. . . . You say, a good cause hallows even war; 
but I tell you, a good war hallows every cause." — ^ Nietzsche, Of 
Wars and Warriors. (Nietzsche is a leader of German thought.) 

"War is part of the divinely appointed order. . . . War is both 
justifiable and moral, and the idea of perpetual peace is not only im- 
possible but also immoral." — Treitschke, Politics, 1916, H, 597, 599. 
(Treitschke for many years had been a leader among German historians.) 

"We must strenuously combat the peace propaganda. . . . War 
is a political necessity. . . . Without war there could be neither racial 
nor cultural progress. 

"Might is the supreme right, and what is right is decided by war. 

"It is presumptuous to think a weak nation is to have the same 
right to live as a powerful and vigorous nation. 

"The inevitableness and . . . the blessedness of war, as the in- 
dispensable law of development, must be repeatedly emphasized." 

— Bernhardi, a Prussian general, in his book, The Next War, in 1912. 

" It is only by trust in our good sword that we shall be able to main- 
tain that place in the sun which belongs to us, and which the world does 
not seem very loilling to allow us.^' — Crown Prince, in Deutschland in 
Waffen, 1913. 

"Do not forget the civilizing task which Providence assigns us. 
Just as Prussia was destined to be the nucleus of Germany, so the new 
Germany shall be the nucleus of a future Empire of the West. . . . We 
will successively annex Denmark, Holland, Belgium, . . . and finally 
northern France. . . . No coalition in the world can stop us." — 
Schellendorf, Prussian War-Minister, in 1872. 

"The salvation of Germany can be attained only by the annihila- 
tion of the smaller states." — Treitschke, Politics. 

And so on almost without end. Says Guy Stanton Ford in 
his Foreword to Conquest and Kuliur,^ a notable collection of 
these evil teachings : 

1 A volume of 171 pages that should be in every school library. Issued 
by the United States Committee on Public Information, and printed at 
Washington by the Government Printing Office. 



602 



GERMANY WILLS WAR 



Testimony 
from a 
German 
Liberal 



"It is a motley throng who are here heard in praise of war and 
international suspicion and conquest and intrigue and devastation 

— emperors, kings, princes, poets, philosophers, educators, journal- 
ists, legislators, manufacturers, militarists, statesmen. Line upon 
line, precept upon precept, they have written this ritual of envy and 
broken faith and rapine. Before them is the war god to whom they 
have offered up their reason and their humanity ; behind them, the 
misshapen image they. have made of the German people, leering with 
bloodstained visage over the ruins of civilization." 

True, in other lands, even in America, lonely voices are 
heard speaking this same doctrine of insolent and ruthless 
Might. But in these other lands any such occasional voice is 
smothered at once by storms of indignant rebuke. In Ger- 
many, for fifty years, this war-worship encountered almost 
no protest — except a feeble one from the Socialists. True 
again, no great country — not England or France or America 

— has been wholly free from greed for territory and for trade, 

— just such greed as lies at the root of most wars. But in 
these lands the time is past when public opinion will support 
an aggressive war, especially with a civilized people, waged 
openly and avowedly to satisfy such low ambitions. Meanwhile, 
Germany, led by her war-besotted prophets, had been zealously 
making ready for just such wars of greed. 

No one must think that this teaching was mere talk. Said 
a member of the American Embassy in Belgium : " They 
[the Germans] fight, not because they are forced to, but be- 
cause, curiously enough, they believe much of their talk. That 
is one of the dangers of the Germans to which the world is ex- 
posed : they really believe much of what they say." (Vernon 
Kellogg in the Atlantic Monthly, August, 1917.) 

Ottfried Nippold, a Liberal professor in one of the German 
universities, shocked by the prevalence of this evil teaching, 
published a book against it in 1913. Said he : " A systematic 
stimulation of the war spirit is going on. . . . War is repre- 
sented to us not merely as a possibility that might arise, 
but as a necessity that must come, and the sooner the 
better. ... To them [the war party] war is quite a normal 



JUNKERS AND MONEY KINGS 603 

institution, not a means to be resorted to only in case of great 
necessity." 

And a French secret agent who had spent much time in study- And from a 
ing opinion in Germany made an exhaustive report to his own "^^^^^ 
government in a secret document in 1913. In a summary, he agent 
Hsted among the forces in Germany making for war : 

(1) The junkers, "who wish to escape the (new) taxes" 
that must be extended to their class if peace continues, and 
who "realize with dread the growing power of democracy 

. and of the Socialists, and consider their own class rule 
doomed" without war. 

(2) The capitalist class — the manufacturers of big guns 
and armor plate ; the merchants who demand bigger 
markets ; all who regard war as good business, including 
those manufacturers who declare that the difficulties be- 
tween them and their workmen originate in France, "the 
home of revolutionary ideas of freedom." 

(3) The universities, which teach war philosophy. 

The sartie report declared : " There are forces making for 
peace, but they are unorganized, and have no popular leaders. 
They comprise the bulk of the artisans and peasants; but they 
have almost no influence. They are silent social forces, passive 
and defenseless against the infection of a wave of warlike feeling." 

And even those parts of the population not easily converted German 
to the doctrine of aggressive war — the peasants and the 
Socialist city workers — were at least taught by constant 
iteration to hate England because of her leadership in trade, 
and to fear Russia's growing numbers, and so to accept the 
idea that war was unavoidable. 

True, wherever the English flag floated, German traders 
and German ships were given freely every chance open to Eng- 
lish traders, in honest accord with England's advanced doc- 
trine of free trade and free seas. But English enterprise still 
led in world commerce. German conceit could explain this 



hatred for 
England 



604 GERMANY WILLS WAR 

only by belief in some secret, gigantic trickery by their rivals. 
Moreover the molders of German opinion taught that England 
hated and feared Germany, and would welcome a chance to 
destroy her. Between 1912 and 1914, to be sure, the German 
ambassador to England, Prince Lichnowsky,^ repeatedly as- 
sured his government of England's friendly and pacific feeling. 
English manufacturers and merchants, he said, felt no bitter 
envy of the swift advance of German prosperity, but saw in- 
stead that such advance made Germany a better customer for 
English products. 

In 1912 English statesmen suggested that the two countries 
should cease their ruinous race in building warships. Lich- 
nowsky wrote to Berlin that the proposal was made in perfect 
good faith. England, he said, would undoubtedly try to keep 
her lead in naval power, so absolutely necessary to her safety 
as an island state, but she had no desire to use her navy except 
to preserve peace. But these communications were out of tune 
with the purpose of the German government, and they never 
reached the German people. 
English at- In 1912 there were other long negotiations between German 

keT^the* ^"^ English governments, of which the people at that time 
peace knew nothing. The English statesmen offered to sign a declara- 

tion that England would not be a party to any attach upon 
Germany. This did not satisfy the Germans. They insisted 
that England should promise neutrality in a European war, 
no matter how it might come. To have done this would have 
been to desert France, and to make it more likely that Germany 
would attack. Very properly, and in the interests of peace, the 
English government refused such a shameful compact. 

1 This remarkable German, a cultivated and able Liberal, wholly free 
from the spirit of German jingoism, had been selected for the position ap- 
parently in order to blind English opinion as to Germany's warlike aims. 
When the war came, he found himself in disgrace with the Kaiser and the 
German court ; and at the opening of the second year of the war (August, 
1916) he wrote an account of his London mission for private circulation 
among his friends, to justify himself in their eyes. A copy fell into the 
hands of the Allies during the next year, and became at once one of the most 
valuable proofs of German guilt in forcing on the war. 



THE OCCASION FOUND 605 

As Bismarck prepared his "Trilogy of Wars," of which he Germany's 
boasted so insolently, in order to make Prussia mistress of Pi'^P^^d- 
Germany, so after 1890, even more deliberately, Kaiser Wilhelm 
and his advisers prepared vaster war to make Germany mistress 
of the world. They hoarded gold in the war chest ; heaped up 
arms and munitions, and huge stocks of raw materials, to 
manufacture more; secretly tried out new military inventions 
on a vast scale, — submarines, Zeppelins, poison gases, new 
explosives ; created a navy in a race to best England's ; bound 
other ruling houses to their own by marriage or by placing 
Hohenzollerns directly on the throne — in Russia, Greece, 
Bulgaria, Roumania; reorganized the Turkish Empire and 
filled offices in the army and navy there with Germans; per- 
meated every great country, in the Old World and the New, 
with an insidious and treacherous system of spies in the guise 
of friendly business shielded by innocent hospitality ; and 
secured control of banking syndicates and of newspapers in 
foreign lands, especially in Italy and America, so as to influence 
public opinion. 

In June, 1914, the Kiel Canal was finally opened to the 
passage of the largest ships of war. Now Germany was ready, 
and her warlords were growing anxious to use their preparation 
before it grew stale — and before France and Russia, some- 
what alarmed now, should have time to put into effect their 
new army laws (p. 574). Moreover war, better than any- 
thing else, would quiet the rising feeling in Germany, especially 
among the Socialists, against militarism.^ 

Germany, we know now, had seriously considered precipitating why Ger- 
war on several recent occasions connected with colonial ques- ^^^y ^^^ 
tions ^ in Africa ; but her leaders prudently preferred a first sooner 

1 See C. Altschul's German Militarism and Its German Critics, No. 13 in 
the War Information Series. 

2 The two Morocco crises, 1905-1906 and 1911, were each caused by a 
brutal German show of force. War was averted the first time only by 
studious French moderation, and, the second time, by England's plain 
declaration that she would side with France. See War Encyclopedia under 
"Morocco," and Harding's Great War, Ch. ii, III. 



606 



GERMANY WILLS WAR 



The Sera- 
jevo miir- 
ders, 
June 28, 
1914 



The month 
of quiet 



war in which England would not be likely to join, so that the 
Teutonic empires might have only France and Russia to deal 
with at one time. Almost any colonial problem would concern 
England, who had been a chief party in the many European con- 
ferences that had adjusted colonial disputes. In the Balkans, 
however, England had shown no selfish interest for many years, 
and it was easy to believe that she would not fight upon a Balkan 
question. 

And now came just the kind of occasion the German war- 
lords wished. Ever since its unjust seizure by Austria, Bosnia 
had been seething with conspiracies against Austrian rule. 
June 28, 1914, the heir to the Austrian throne, the Archduke 
Francis, and his wife were assassinated while in Bosnia by some 
of these conspirators — who, it is now known, included Serb 
officers. 

Europe was aghast. Horror at the dastardly murder was 
mingled with fear of a great European war. Austria, it was 
known, was greedy for Serb territory. But if she used this 
murder as an excuse to attack Serbia, Russia would surely de- 
fend that country. And a conflict between Austria and Russia 
could not but draw in at once Germany and France, and 
perhaps others. 

Austria had long looked upon her unruly little neighbor to 
the south very much as some Americans look upon Mexico. 
Now Austrian papers loudly declared Serbia responsible for the 
murder, inasmuch as she had not suppressed societies of con- 
spirators within her borders agitating for Bosnian liberation. 
But a month passed quietly before the Austrian government 
took any action, and European fears died down. That month, 
we know now on German evidence,^ was used in ceaseless but 



1 July 5 there was held at Potsdam a secret conference of military au- 
thorities, bankers, and manufacturers of munitions, and so on ; and a war 
program was decided upon. When the story leaked out, German papers 
denied it vehemently ; but before the war closed, the truth of the meeting 
was well established by German evidence. The money kings asked a 
month's delay that they might "mobilize" their finances, turning foreign 
bonds into cash. 



AUSTRIA AND SERBIA 



607 



secret preparation to strike. Then, absolutely without warn- 
ing, Austria sent to little Serbia an "ultimatum" harsh 
almost beyond belief, and in the next twelve days a world war 
was launched. 

Austria made ten demands, which may be summed up under The Aus 
three heads : 



1. That Serbia suppress all agitation against Austria 
in newspapers, schools, and organizations of any sort. 

2. That she agree to dismiss from her schools, from her 
army, and from her administration any teacher or official 
to whom Austria might object. 

3. That she permit Austrian officials to become part of 
the Serbian government so far as necessary to attend to these 
foregoing provisions, and that she allow such officials to sit 
in Serbian courts to judge Serbians accused of connection 
with the murders of June 28. 

The Austrian ambassador at Belgrade told the Serbian govern- 
ment that it must accept these terms without reservations 
within 48 hours. The German Socialist, Karl Liebknecht, at 
once said bravely that the demands "were more brutal than 
any ever made upon any civilized state in all human history" 
and that they were "intended to provoke war" (Vorwdrts, 
July 25) ; but the German government stoutly supported 
Austria. Serbia, after trying vainly to get the time limit ex- 
tended, made a humble and conciliatory reply, accepting the 
harsh Austrian terms except those under 3 above. These 
plainly would have reduced her to a mere vassal of Austria. 
But even these she offered to refer to longer negotiation or to 
arbitration. This reply the Austrian ambassador declared 
" dishonest and evasive," and he at once left Serbia. 

The Austrian demands had been sent to the Serbian gov- 
ernment in the evening of July 23, too late to allow any con- 
sideration until the next day — especially as the Serbian ministers 
were scattered over the country in a poHtical campaign. The 
Serbian reply was handed to the Austrian ambassador July 25, 
at 5 : 58 p.m. He and his whole staff left Belgrade from the rail- 



trian ulti- 
matum, 
July 23 



Serbia's 

conciliatory 

reply 



608 



OPENING OF WORLD WAR 



England's 
attempt 
for peace 
balked by 
Germany 



The ten 
days, 
Jvly 28- 
August 2 



road station at 6 : 30. He knew that his terms could not be 
accepted, and his staff must have been packed up, hat in hand. 

Secret minutes of a meeting of the Austrian ministry of July 9 
(just now published, in December 1919, by the new Grovernment 
of Austria) prove that German aid had just been promised by 
the Kaiser. The Austrian ministry, except for one Hungarian, 
wished to invade Serbia at once without even a declaration of 
war. The Hungarian opposition resulted in this policy of send- 
ing an ultimatum, but one intended to be rejected. 

England, France, and Russia had been making every efPort 
to get these extreme concessions from Serbia, in the interest of 
peace. Now England repeatedly asked Germany to help 
preserve peace by getting Austria to accept Serbia's submission 
or by referring the matter to arbitration, or at least to an in- 
formal discussion among representatives of the Great Powers, 
so as to try to come to an agreement. Germany professed to 
desire peace but found objections to each suggestion made by 
England, while she failed to accept England's request, that she 
herself suggest some plan. 

The German ambassador at London, Lichnowsky, believed 
that if his country had wished peace, a settlement could easily 
have been secured, and, we know now, he "strongly backed" 
the English proposals, but in vain. "We insisted on war," he 
says in his account to his friends; "the impression grew that 
we wanted war under any circumstances. It was impossible 
to interpret our attitude in any other way." And again, " I had 
to support in London a policy the wickedness of which I recog- 
nized. That brought down vengeance upon me, because it 
was a sin against the Holy Ghost." ^ 

So passed the first four days, while the world held its breath. 
July 28, Austria declared war upon Serbia. Russia at once 
began to mobilize ^ troops on the Austrian frontier, — notify- 

1 Remember that this was written when the war was only a year old. 

2 In each European country "mobilization" was understood. Each of 
the millions of men in the Active Reserves would receive notice — through 
local authorities, who had been notified a few hours earlier by' the central 
government, to report at a given hour at a given place. At that time 
and place the necessary officers would be present to organize the men, as 



hesitates 



forces the 
war 



GERMANY PULLS THE STRINGS 609 

ing Germany that this act was in no way hostile to her, and also 
that no warlike action would be taken against Austria so long Austria 
as that country permitted Serbia to continue negotiations for 
peace. Germany brusquely demanded that Austria be allowed 
her will with Serbia without Russian interference. 

July 30 and 31, Russia offered, twice, to stop her slow prepara- Germany 
tions if Austria would promise to exact only a moderate punish- 
ment from Serbia and not to destroy that little country's inde- 
pendence. Now for the first time Austria seemed ready to 
3'ield somewhat. And so Germany, which all along had willed 
the war, had to come into the open to force it on. For some 
days (ever since July 21) she had secretly been concentrating 
troops on her western frontier, ready to strike France ; and 
on the evening of July 29 a secret war council at Potsdam over- 
ruled the Kaiser's last eleventh-hour hesitation. August 1, 
Germany declared war upon Russia,^ after an insulting twelve- 
hour ultimatum demanding instant demobilization. 

At the same time Germany gave France 18 hours in which 
to promise to abandon Russia to her fate, and was ready further 
to demand that France surrender certain fortresses during the 
war as a guarantee of good faith. The next day (August 2) 

they arrived, into military units ; and transportation would be ready to 
move each unit to a larger rendezvous. Arms, munitions, cannons, ma- 
chine guns, food, clothing, and transportation for all these things must 
also be in readiness. 

1 See Davis' Roots of the War, 510-512, for the story of a trick by which 
Germanj' had frightened the Tsar into a more warlike attitude. See also 
Harding, Great War, Ch. III. Liebknecht at the time declared the fact : 
"The decision rests with William II. . . . But the war-lords are at work 
. . . without a qualm of conscience ... to bring about a monstrous world 
war, the devastation of Europe" {Vorwarts, July 30, 1914). A few months 
later, Liebknecht tried to distribute leaflets among the German people to 
tell them how the government had suppressed knowledge of the peaceful 
aims of Russia and England. 

Week by week, as these lines are written, proof comes to light that lead- 
ing Russian statesmen had been plotting for war as directly as the German 
government had (especially Sazanov, minister to France, and later the 
favorite of the Peace Congress). But as the crisis drew on, the Tsar seems 
to have clung to peace, either from his timidity or from a revival of his old 
attachment to peace. 



610 



OPENING OF WORLD WAR 



Hypocrisy 
of the 
German 
counter- 
charges 



Belgium 
resists 



.German troops occupied neutral Luxemburg and began to mass 
upon the Belgian frontier ; and the German government gave 
Belgium 12 hours (7 p.m. to 7 a.m.) to decide whether she would 
permit German troops to cross her territory so as to find an un- 
guarded road into France. August 3, receiving no reply from 
France to her dishonorable proposals, Germany declared war 
upon that country and invaded Belgium, charging falsely that 
France had violated that territory — in face of the fact 
that, to avoid any clash through hotheadedness, France had 
withdrawn her troops everywhere six miles within her borders. 

Reckless falsehood and hypocritical charges against others 
were the method used by Germany throughout to justify her- 
self. Says Brand Whitlock, American ambassador to Belgium, 
recounting a long list of such pretended excuses in those days : — 
"When he (the German) wished to invade Belgium, he said 
(falsely) that French aviators had thrown bombs on Nurem-, 
berg [meaning that they had flown over Belgium to do so]. 
"When he wished to sack and destroy Louvain, he said (falsely) 
that civilians had fired on him. When he wished to use as- 
phyxiating gas, he said (falsely) the French were using it. The 
thing that vitiated the whole character of modern Germany . . . 
was the lie." Upright Germans themselves saw this. As 
early as 1909 the Socialist Scheidemann dared to say in the 
Reichstag that lying was "the most characteristic trait of the 
HohenzoUerns." And all will remember how Bismarck boasted 
of the forgery by which he tricked France into war in his day. 

Germany had promised, in case Belgium consented to the 
passage of her troops, to make good all damage, but had threat- 
ened the most savage consequences if her demand were refused. 
Belgium had replied with heroic dignity. Her neutrality 
had been solemnly and repeatedly guaranteed by the Great 
Powers, including Prussia, ^ and now she herself was ready to 

1 Prussia was a party to the original treaty of 1839, guaranteeing Belgium 
from invasion by any country, and also to its renewal in 1870; and the 
German Empire in 1871 accepted for itself all Prussia's international obliga- 
tions. 



AIMS OF THE PARTIES 611 

suffer martyrdom to defend that neutrality, as she was in honor 
bound to do. ^ 

Belgium also at once appealed to England ; and England 
(August 3) let German}^ know that the invasion of Belgium 
must stop or England would declare war, as bound by the most 
solemn obligations. Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, was griev- 
ously chagrined. He had believed that "shop-keeping Eng- 
land" would refuse to fight; and he expressed bitterly to the 
departing English ambassador his amazement that England 
should enter the war "just for a scrap of paper." 

The next day (August 4) in his address to the Reichstag, the 
Chancellor himself admitted Germany's guilt. "Necessity 
knows no law. Gentlemen, this [invasion of Belgium] is a 
breach of international law. . . . We knew France stood ready 
for an invasion [a false statement]. The wrong — I speak 
openly — the wrong we thereby commit, we will try to make 
good as soon as our military ends have been attained." 

The same day England "went in." England, it is to be England 
hoped, would not in any case have looked on, to see France ^°®^ ^^ 
crushed, but she might have held off too long except for 
the German crime against Belgium. This was Germany's 
fatal blunder. And the consciousness that she had blundered Germany 
called out among almost all classes a frenzy of hate for Eng- ^^o"s 
land ^ whose overthrow in a later war, it was now openly 
avowed, had been the real goal all along. France was to have 
been crushed first, to leave England alone and to enable Ger- 
many to launch her attack upon England from near-by French 
ports like Calais. From this time, too, the credulous German 
masses were taught zealously that England had willed the war 
from the first and had tricked a peace-loving Germany into it ! 
"May God blast England" became the almost universal form 
of daily greeting. 

Germany had indeed been tricked, but only by her own greed 
and conceit and her own silly contempt for others. After all, 
however, Germany was prepared "to the last shoe lace," and 
her opponents, with all the warning they had had, were not 



612 OPENING OF WORLD WAR 

prepared. Least of all was England ready for war. She had 
no army worth mentioning — only a few scattered and distant 
garrisons ; and, what was worse, she had no arms for her eager 
volunteers, and no factories worth mention to make munitions. 
War aims Soon both parties claimed to be fighting for peace. But 

of the two German leaders made" it plain that they looked only to a sort 
of peace won by making Germany so supreme in the world that 
no other power could possibly dream of withstanding or dis- 
obeying her. The old balance of power theory was bad enough ; 
but infinitely worse was this German theory of peace through 
slavery. Said Chancellor Bethmann-HoUweg (May 28, 1915) : 
"We must endure till we have gained every possible guarantee 
so that none of our enemies — not alone, not united — will 
again dare a trial of strength with us." 

Opposed to this ideal of a peace by force, English statesmen — 
like President Wilson later — set up at once the ideal of a peace 
of righteousness, and taught that the war was " a war to end 
war." Said Premier Asquith, November 9, 1914 : 

"We shall never sheathe the sword which we have not Ughtly 
drawn until Belgium recovers in full measure all and more than all 
that she has sacrificed, until France is adequately secured against the 
menace of aggression, until the rights of the smaller nationalities of 
Europe are placed upon an unassailable foundation, and until military 
domination of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed." 

And said Sir Edward Grey, the English Foreign Minister, 
January 26, 1916, in the House of Commons : 

"The great object to be attained ... is that there shall not again 
be this sort of militarism in Europe, which in time of peace causes the 
whole of the continent discomfort by its continual menace, and then, 
when it thinks the moment has come that suits itself, plunges the con- 
tinent into war." 

And again, six months later to an American newspaper- 
man: 

"What we and our aUies are fighting for is a free Europe. We 
want a Europe free, not only from the domination of one nationality 
by another, but from hectoring diplomacy and the peril of war ; free 



AIMS OF PARTIES 613 

from the constant rattling of the sword in the scabbard, from perpetual 
talk of shining armor, and war lords. We are fighting for equal rights ; 
for law, justice, peace ; for civilization throughout the world, as against 
brute force." 

For Further Reading. — In the flood of printed matter regarding 
the background of the war, the difficulty is to select. The following 
suggestions are made with particular view to their permanent value 
and at the same time to their suitability for the general reader : / 
Accuse (by an anonymous German), esp. 26-141 ; J. E. Barker's Modern 
Germany, 297-317, 798-829 ; W. S. Davis' Roots of the War, chs. xvii, 
xviii, xix; J. W. Gerard's My Four Years in Germany, chs. iv, v; 
Prince Lichnowsky's Memoirs; Gibbons' New Map of Europe, esp. pp. 
1-367. For evidence that the German government was preparing for 
immediate war even before June 28, see S. B. Harding's Great War, 
ch. iii, V, VI ; and on Belgium's neutraUty, the same, ch. vi. III. 



CHAPTER XLVI 



THE FIRST YEAR, 1914 



The Ger- 
man plan 



Foiled by 
Belgium 



The battle 
of the 
Mame 



The Germans had planned a short war. They expected 
(1) to go through Belgium swiftly with little opposition, and 
to take Paris within four weeks ; (2) then to swing their strength 
against Russia before that unwieldy power could get into the 
war effectively, and crush her ; and (3) with the Channel ports 
at command, to bring England easily to her knees, if she should 
really enter the war. 

Thanks to Belgium, the first of these expectations fell through 
— and the others fell with it. The Germans had allowed six 
days to march through Belgium. But for sixteeyi days little 
Belgium, alone in her agony, under the command of her hero 
king, Albert, held back mighty Germany. When the French 
began mobilization, after August 2, they began it to meet an 
honest attack through Lorraine ; but before the Belgians were 
quite crushed, the French managed to shift enough force to 
the north, along with a hurried and poorly equipped " Ex- 
peditionary Army" of 100,000 from England, to delay the 
German advance through northern France for three weeks 
more — ground that the German plan had allowed eight days 
to win. Tremendously outnumbered, outflanked, trampled 
into the dust in a ceaseless series of desperate battles, the thin 
lines of Allied survivors fell back doggedly toward the Marne. 
There Joffre, the French commander-in-chief, was collecting 
all resources for his final stand. 

The Germans drove on furiously, outrunning even their 
supply trains. September 3, the French government withdrew 
to Bordeaux. But September 6, when the boastful invaders 

614 



NEW FORMS OF FIGHTING 615 

were in sight of the towers of Paris, only 20 miles away, their 
guns tliundering almost in the suburbs, the French and English 
turned at bay in a colossal battle along a two-hundred-mile 
front. Joffre issued to all corps commanders his famous order : 
"The hour has come to let yourselves be killed rather than to 
yield ground. Troops must let themselves be shot down where 
they stand rather than retreat." The crisis came on the fourth 
day when the Germans, anxious to use their superior numbers 
in an enveloping movement around both the Allied wings, had 
perilously weakened their center. With true military genius. 
General Foch, a trusted lieutenant of Joffre's, divined the 
situation, and hurled his exhausted troops desperately at that 
key-position. Even then, only splendid resolution won the day. 
Joft're had sent an anxious inquiry to ask Foch's situation. 
The dogged Foch telegraphed back hastily : " My right is 
beaten back ; my center is crushed ; my left has been repulsed. 
Situation excellent. I am attacking again with my left." And 
when a subordinate reported, "My men are exhausted," Foch 
replied curtly, "So are the enemy. Attack!" This time, the 
attack broke the invader's line. 

To save themselves from destruction, the Germans retreated 
hastily to the line of the x\isne. Later attempts by them to 
resume the offensive failed ; but the Allies were too exhausted 
to dislodge them. Both sides "dug in" along a 360-mile front, 
from Switzerland to the North Sea. Then began a "trench 
warfare," new in history. The positions stabilized, and, on 
the whole, in spite of repeated and horrible slaughter, were not 
materially altered on this Western front until the final months 
of the war four years later. 



New and ever more terrible ways of fighting marked this New 

nieth( 
warfare 



warfare, with increasing ferocity and horror from month to ™® ° ^ ° 



month. Ordinary cannon were replaced by huge new guns 
whose high explosives blasted the whole landscape into in- 
describable and irretrievable ruin — burying whole battalions 
alive, and forming great craters where snipers found the best 



616 THE WORLD WAR, 1914 

shelter in future advances. Ordinary defense works were 
elaborated into many lines of connected trenches beneath the 
earth, protected by mazy entanglements of barbed wire and 
strengthened at intervals by bomb-proof "dugouts" and 
underground chambers of heavy timbers and cement. To 
plow through these intrenchments, cavalry gave way to mon- 
strous, heavily armored motor-tanks. New guns belched 
deadly poison gases, slaying whole regiments in horrible stran- 
gling torture when the Germans first used this devilish device, 
in April, 1915, — until English and French chemists invented 
gas masks that afforded fair protection if donned in time — 
and infernal "flame-throwers" wrapped whole ranks in liquid 
fire. Scouting was done, and gunfire directed, by airplanes 
equipped with new apparatus for wireless telegraphy and for 
photography; and dailj' these aerial scouts, singly or in fleets, 
met in deadly combat ten thousand feet above the ground, — 
combat that ended only when one or both went hurtling down 
in flames to crashing destruction. Worse than these terrors 
even, the soldiers dreaded the beastly filthiness of trench war; 
the never absent smell of rotting human flesh ; the torture of 
vermin ; the dreary monotony. 

The East The original German plan had been wrecked at the Marne, 

1914 ai^d that name now ranks with Marathon. The Russians had 

mobilized more swiftly than friend or foe had believed possible, 
and were swarming into East Prussia, threatening Austria. 
August 26 they were defeated ruinously at Tannenberg by 
Hindenburg, a Prussian veteran of 1870, with the most fearful 
slaughter ever known in one battle in all history; but against 
the Austrians they fared better. After winning a great battle 
on the frontier, they forced their way into Austrian Galicia 
and captured Lemberg. Germany was forced to divert troops 
from France to succor her Austrian ally during the rest of the 
campaign, and when the year 1914 closed, the Russians were 
holding their own in Poland, with good prospects of renewing 
the invasion of the Austrian realms. 



CAMPAIGNS ON THE EAST FRONT 



617 



Austria had another pressing job. The story of the hatching 
of the war makes clear why she felt it necessary promptly to 
cfush Serbia. That little country of fighters, however, sup- 
plied with necessary munitions by the other Allies through 
Saloniki, had repulsed two Austrian invasions, and now all 
Austrian soldiers were needed to meet the peril in Galicia. 

Meantime Turkey had joined the Central Powers. We 
know now that Turkey made a formal war alliance with 




Mosque of Suleiman I and adjacent parts of Constantinople, in 1914. 

Germany at the opening of the struggle (August 4) ; but it was Turkey 
thought best to keep this secret for a time. In October, how- T^tonic 
ever, two German warships, fleeing from an English squadron, empires 
received shelter within the Dardanelles. The German am- 
bassador then carried through a fictitious sale of these ships 
to "neutral" Turkey ; and, flying the Turkish flag but manned 
by their old crew and officers, the two vessels raided Russian 
Odessa. Accordingly, in November, England, France, and 
Russia declared war on Turkey. At this time, the Ottoman 



618 



THE WORLD WAR, 1914 



Germany 
turns back 
to the West 
front 



But fails at 
the Yser and 
at Ypres 



state was still shut off from its Teutonic allies by a broad belt 
of neutral or hostile Balkan territory, and, isolated as it was, 
England and Russia hoped soon to crush it. 

In the West, after it became plain that a deadlock had de- 
veloped, the German government realized the need of attacking 
England directly without waiting to annihilate France. In 
August and September, British sea-power had swept German 
shipping from the seas. If the war was to be a long one, this 
strangling of German commerce would be decisive. Hence 
the attack upon England must be tried at once if any possible 
base could be won. As a necessary step, the Germans turned 
to complete their conquest of the Belgian coast. King Albert 
of Belgium and the bulk of his heroic little army were still 
holding Antwerp. The huge German siege guns now beat to 
powder the protecting forts, and the invaders captured that 
city on October 9, — though in their exulting parade they 
foolishly permitted the Belgian army to escape towards France. 
Immediately after, they secured the port of Ostend and most of 
the rest of the Belgian coast. 

To attack England successfully, however, against her un- 
conquerable fleet, Germany needed better and nearer ports for 
a base, — at least Dunkirk and Calais; and October 16 they 
began the four weeks' Battle of the Yser in order to force the 
last natural barrier protecting those Channel ports. Checked 
by the cutting of the dykes, they next brought their force 
against the thin English lines near Ypres. The gallant resist- 
ance offered the magnificent "Prussian Guards" in the First 
Battle of Ypres by the outnumbered and ill-armed English 
makes one of the most heroic stories in all history. In 
vain, day after day for a long month, with slight intervals 
for preparation, did the overwhelming German forces deliver 
their reckless mass attacks upon the opponents whom they 
had styled "a contemptible little army." They wore them- 
selves down upon that dying but unconquered line without 
ever becoming able to deliver a knock-out blow, losing more 
men than the total English force; and winter conditions set 



THE ENGLISH NAVY 619 

in, November 17, with the desired ports still in the hands of 
the Allies. 

Thus closed the first war-season. On the West front, Ger- Close of the 
many had failed. The French government had come back 
to Paris, and the French army was in perfect condition. Eng- 
land's gallant first army had died devotedly to gain her time ; 
but the time had been fairly well used. England reorganized 
herself for war — built new munition factories — though not 
enough, time was to prove ; poured forth gold lavishl.y for 
Russia and France ; saved and suffered and toiled and drilled 
at home, and put into the field eventually a splendid fighting 
force of six million men, — a million ready for the second year. 
England had looked upon the war as a "beastly" interruption; 
but she was rapidly reorganizing her life on a war basis. True, 
deceived by a stupid censorship, she had not yet grasped the 
full danger, and was sadly behind, especially in the output 
of high explosi\'es. But, from the first, her superb navy swept The English 
the seas, keeping the boastful German navy bottled up in harbor ""^^ 
or in the South Baltic, and gradually running down the few 
German raiders that at first escaped to prey on British commerce. 
The blockade of Germany was not enforced rigidly, for fear of 
offending American opinion, but already it was creating a 
serious food problem for Germany. And on the other hand, 
.America's resources in food and munitions, closed to Germany 
by the English navy, were all available to the Allies. Except 
for the English navy, Germany would have won the war in 
the second year. 

Further, England's distant and peaceful daughter-common- England's 

wealths, — Canada, x\ustralia. New Zealand, South Africa, and ^^^^ghter- 

common- 
even her Indian Empire, — were rousing themselves splendidly wealths 

to the defense of their common civilization. And Japan, •'""^ 

England's ally in the Orient, had entered the war, to aggrandize 

herself by seizing Germany's holdings in China and many of her 

islands in the Pacific. 



CHAPTER XLVII 



THE SECOND YEAR. 1915 



The danger 
of Russian 
collapse 



Necessity 
that the 
Allies se- 
cure the 
Dardanelles 



At the opening of 1915, the chief danger to England and 
France was their too great trust in Russia, — their belief that 
the Russian "steam-roller," fully prepared, would now crush 
its way to Berlin or at least into Hungary. As a matter of 
fact, there was no ground for this expectation. Russia was 
near the end of her supply of munitions ; and her industries were 
too primitive to cope with longer war. The minister of war, too, 
had secretly sold himself to Germany, and was doing his best 
to hinder military movements and to waste and misdirect the 
scanty supplies.^ Similar treason permeated a large part of 
the official classes and the court circle, centering around the 
Hohenzollern wife of the Tsar. 

The Germans, of course, understood this Russian situation — 
though the Allies did not. Accordingly they planned only to 
hold their trenches in the West, and to concentrate their energies 
in putting Russia quickly out of the war. 

Russia was almost isolated from the other Allies. Germany 
closed the Baltic; Turkey closed the Black Sea; Archangel 
was ice-closed during most of the year; and Vladivostok was 
so distant as to be almost negligible for the -"oming year. If 
Russia were to receive badly needed supplies, the x\llies must 
force the Dardanelles and capture Constantinople. Success 
in this project in 1915 would have ended the war. The waver- 
ing Balkan states would have joined Russia. Turkey would 

' Two years later this man was executed for high treason. Of Russia's 
four important munition factories, the largest was directly controlled, 
secretly, by Germany. And Ludendorff's Story of the War, now in print, 
discloses that the German victory at Tannenberg (p. 616) was due to the 
treason of a Russian general. 

620 



GALLIPOLI 621 

have been crushed. The conglomerate, ill-cemented Austrian 
Empire would have been open to invasion from the south ; and 
the Allies must have won. 

Thus both parties planned now to transfer the decisive The attempt 
struggle to the East front. The Allies were able to strike first. 
In February, the Allied navy attacked the Dardanelles. The 
outer forts were taken or battered down, but the inner fortresses 
resisted successfully. In March a more formidable attack all 
but succeeded. Had the Allies known how exhausted the 
Turkish ammunition was, they might have opened the straits. 
Not informed of this, however, and discouraged by heavy losses 
in ships, the navy now waited nearly two months for the arrival 
of land forces to cooperate in storming the Turkish defenses. 
When the British transports arrived, late in April, the Turks 
were perfectly prepared. British and Australian troops were 
landed, with horrible loss, under destructive fire ; but the 
heroic attempts of the Anzacs ^ to storm the fortresses of the 
Gallipoli Peninsula failed deplorably. In August, the attempt 
was renewed, and came once more just short of decisive success. 
After this, there was no chance against the greatly strengthened 
Turkish positions. 

Meantime, in May, the Germans opened their drive against The Ger- 
Russia in Galicia with the first enormous concentration of ngjpj^st 
artillery in the war. The Russians were admirably com- Russia 
manded in the field, and they fought, as always, with reckless 
valor. But their cannon were useless from want of ammuni- 
tion, and even with the infantry many a soldier had to wait 
until a comrade had fallen before he could get a gun to fight 
with. With amazing success, under the circumstances, their 
retreat was saved from becoming a rout. But the Austrians 
recaptured Lemberg in June, and the Germans took Warsaw 
early in August. The Teutonic armies then cleared most of 
eastern Poland of Russian garrisons before they halted their 
drive late in September, in order to attempt a more important 
drive on the southeast (below). Russia had lost an enormous 
' Australian A^ew Zealand Auxiliary Corps. 



622 



THE WORLD WAR IN 1915 



Trench war 
on the West 



Bulgaria 
joins the 
Central 
Empires 



Serbia is 
crushed 



number of lives, with a million and a half of prisoners ; she had 
been driven out of a huge territory ; and her offensive power 
had been destroyed for months to come. 

On the West front, there was continuous trench fighting, with 
much loss of life, but the only important event of the year was 
the German offensive at Ypres (Second Battle of Ypres, April 17- 
May 17) where the English line was almost broken by the Ger- 
man asphyxiating gas, then first used in war. That the line 
held against this devilish attack was due largely to the splendid 
gallantry of the new Canadian divisions. Lack of high ex- 
plosives kept the Allies from attempting a serious offensive 
until just before the season closed — in September — and the 
event proved that the supplies even then were insufficient to 
prepare the way for successful infantry attack, so that the only 
result was one more terrible lesson with pitiful sacrifice of lives. 
The Germans had stopped their triumphant progress into 
Russia only to avail themselves of a more attractive program. 
In October, Bulgaria finally joined the Central Powers (fear 
of Russia gone), hoping to wreak vengeance on Serbia for 
1913 and to make herself the ruling state in the Balkans. Her 
secretly prepared army invaded Serbia from the east while a 
huge Teutonic force attacked from the north. Serbia had 
counted upon her treaty of 1913 with Greece for protection 
against possible Bulgarian attack. But King Constantine of 
Greece, brother-in-law of the German Kaiser, now repudiated 
that treaty and dismissed his prime minister, Venizelos, for 
desiring to keep Greece faithful to her ally. A Franco-British 
army had been sent to Saloniki, but, after the defection of 
Greece, it could accomplish nothing. In spite of their gallant 
resistance, the Serbs were overwhelmed. The survivors of 
their army made their way over the mountains of Albania to 
the coast, and were ferried across to Corfu by British ships. 
Serbia and Montenegro and much of Albania were occupied 
by the Bulgars and Teutons; and the Bulgarian atrocities 
toward the conquered populations during the next years ex- 
ceeded anything those unhappy peoples had ever suffered from 



AND ITALY 



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624 



THE WORLD WAR IN 1915 



Italy joins 
the Allies 



the Turk. The miHtary gain by Germany in this campaign 
was immense. She now dominated a solid broad belt of terri- 
tory from Berlin and Brussels and Warsaw to Bagdad and 
Persia. (Cf. map. p. 655.) 

This gloomy second year of the war brought to the Allies 
only one gain. From the outset of the struggle, Italy had 
repudiated the Triple Alliance. The Teutonic powers, who 
had forced on the war without consulting her in the least par- 
ticular, had not expected help from her, but they did hope that 
she would remain neutral. The Italian government saw its 
opportunity to recover the "unredeemed" Italian territory 
about Triest and Trent — and more. When the Teutonic 
powers had refused its terms, it drove a hard bargain with the 
Allied governments, securing in a secret treaty (since known 
as the Secret Pact of London, iVpril, 1915) promises for not 
only those districts but also for Dalmatia — at the expense of 
martyred Serbia — and for the islands she had seized in the 
Aegean, to the loss of Greece. Then May 23, just when the 
Russian retreat was beginning, Italy declared war on Aus- 
tria, and launched her armies in a drive across the Isonzo 
for Triest. But the Austrians had fortified the Alpine passes 
with every modern device, and for two years the Italians 
made little advance, in spite of much gallant fighting. The 
threat of their advance, however, kept large Austrian forces 
busy, and so lessened the pressure upon the Allies elsewhere 
at critical moments. (Cf. maps, p. 623.) 



Germany's 
" Frightf Ill- 
ness " 



This same year, 1915, saw also a serious extension of Ger- 
many's barbarous submarine warfare, with the invasion of 
neutral rights and the murder of neutral lives. This was to 
bring America into the war two years later, and so hasten the 
close; but it was only one more phase of the deliberately 
adopted German policy of " Frightf ulness," which from the 
first had compelled the attention of the world outside Europe. 

For centuries, international law had been building up rules 
of "civilized" war, so as to protect non-combatants and to 



"HUN" METHODS 625 

preserve some shreds of humanity among even the fighters. 
But German miUtary rulers, for some years, had referred 
slurringly to such "moderation" as a deceitful attempt on 
the part of the weak to protect themselves against the strong. 
Humane considerations the official German, War Manual re- 
ferred to as flabby sentimentality.^ 

The first practical application of this German doctrine of 

Frightfulness had been given to the world in 1900. In that 

year a force of German soldiers set out to join forces from other 

European countries and from the United States in restoring 

order in China, after the massacre of Europeans there in the 

Boxe." Rebellion. July 27 the Kaiser bade his troops farewell 

at Bremerhaven in a set address. In the course of that brutal 

speech he commanded them : " Show no mercy ! Take no The 

prisoners ! As the Huns made a name for themselves which is ^^^er s 

command to 
still mighty in tradition, so may you by your deeds so fix the emulate the 

name of German in China that no Chinese shall ever again dare ^"°^ 
to look at a German askance. . . . Open the way for Kultur." ^ 
At the opening of the World War, this "Hun" policy was 
put into effect in Western Europe. Never since the ancient 
blood-spattered Assyrian monarchs stood exultingly on pyra- 
mids of mangled corpses had the world seen so huge a crime. 
Belgium and northeastern France were devastated. Whole 
villages of innocent non-combatants were wiped out, — men, 
women, children, burned in their houses or shot and bayo- 

' Extracts in Harding, ch. vii, IV. 

2 The troops reached China too late to be of use. American, Japanese, 
French, and Italian troops had already restored order. But the Germans 
made a number of savage "punitive expeditions" for booty and rapine. In 
these they indulged not merely in indiscriminate murder of innocent non- 
combatants, but even in many indescribable outrages upon women. General 
Chaffee, the commander of the United States troops, and the senior officer 
among the Western forces, called together the commanders of the other allies, 
and then as their spokesman interviewed Von Waldersee, the German com- 
mander. Von Waldersee declared haughtily that there would be no change 
in his policy. His soldiers "must have some chance to indulge themselves." 
Said Chaffee: "We have not come to make requests, but to tell you that 
this sort of thing must stop." It stopped. 



626 



THE WORLD WAR IN 1915 



Deliberate 
adoption of 
this policy 
in Belgium 
and France 



The Zeppe- 
lin raids 



neted if they crept forth. All this by deliberate order of the 
"high command," like the frightfulness of the old Assyrians, to 
break the morale of the enemy, to make it easy to hold the con- 
quered territory with a few soldiers, and to terrify neighboring 
small peoples — Dutch, Danes, Swiss — so that they might not 
dare risk a like fate. 

War always develops brutes ; and the terrible nerve strain 
of this war undoubtedly tended, more than ordinary war, to 
paralyze the moral sense and the will. The German soldiers, 
too, more than the soldiers of the Allies, had been brutalized 
by bestial treatment from their officers, and, without orders, 
they committed thousands of nameless outrages upon girls, 
and Sioux-Indian mutilations upon captives. But this, horrible 
as it was, leaves less stain upon Germany than the calm de- 
cision for this policy in cold blood by the polished and easy- 
living German rulers. 

In like fashion, Zeppelins raided England, not mainly to 
destroy military depots, but to drop bombs upon resident parts 
of London and upon peaceful villages, murdering women and 
children. In the years 1915-1917, their aircraft raids murdered 
nearly 4000 non-combatants without accomplishing any military 
purpose.^ So, too, German airplanes bombed hospitals and 
Red Cross trains, assassinating doctors and nurses along with 
the wounded soldiers ; and soon the submarines began to torpedo 
hospital ships, clearly marked as such. Nor is it easy to find 
any imaginable crime against the war customs of all civilized 
nations that was not committed and boasted of by Germany 
within a few months after this war began. No wonder that 
even neutral lands began to know Germans no longer by the 
kindly "Fritz" but only by "Hun" or "Boche." ~ 

' England long refused to adopt this barbarous policy, even for retaliation. 
She finally did so, somewhat later than France ; but more efficient results 
were found in developing anti-aircraft guns and in the use of protecting 
airplanes, so that in the last years of the war a Zeppelin raid was too danger- 
ous to be tried often. 

- On all this, see German War Practices and German Treatment of Conquered 
Territory, volumes edited by Dana C. Munro and other well-known American 
historians, under the auspices of the Committee on Public Information. 



HUN" METHODS 



627 




Rheims Cathedral. This masterpiece 1 4 ( lothic architecture was wantonly 
and seriously damaged by German shell fire in 1914 — in accordance with 
what seems a deliberate design to destroy art treasures that could not be 
carried away. This facade dates from the thirteenth century. 



628 



THE WORLD WAR IN 1915 



America's 
long attempt 
at neutrality 



Forces for 
and against 
neutrality 



With German approval, and under the eyes of German officers, 
the Turks massacred a majority of the Armenians, and the Bulgarians 
massacred in wholesale fashion the non-combatant Serbian population. 
A word from Germany would have stopped these revolting excesses 
against humanity, which were upon a scale even huger than Ger- 
many's own crimes in the West, but which were committed by races 
from whom we do not expect " civilized " warfare. 

To the United States, even more than to France or England, 
the war came as a surprise ; and for some time its purposes and 
its origin were obscured by a skillful German propaganda in 
our press and on the platform. President Wilson issued the 
usual proclamation of neutrality, and followed this with un- 
usual and solemn appeals to the American people for a real 
neutrality of feeling. For two years the administration clung 
to this policy. Any other course was made difficult for the 
President by the fact that many Democratic leaders in 
Congress were either pro-German or extreme pacifists. More- 
over the President seems to have hoped that if the United 
States could keep apart from the struggle, it might, at the close, 
render mighty service to the world in a world-council to estab- 
lish lasting world peace. 

True, our best informed men and w^omen saw at once that 
France and England were waging our war, battling and dying 
to save our ideals of free industrial civilization, and of common 
decency, from a militaristic despotism. Tens of thousands of 
young Americans, largely college men, made their way to tne 
fighting line, as volunteers in the Canadian regiments, in the 
French "Foreign Legion," or in the "air service"; and hun- 
dreds of thousands more among us blushed with shame daily 
that other and weaker peoples should struggle and suffer in 
our cause while we stood idly by. 

But to other millions — long a majority — the dominant 
feeling was a deep thankfulness that our sons were safe from 
slaughter, our homes free from the horror of war. Nor was 
this attitude as strange or as grossly selfish then as it seems 
now. Vast portions of our people had neither cared nor known 
about the facts back of the war : to such, that mighty struggle 



AND AMERICAN NEUTRALITY 629 

between Wrong and Right was merely "a bloody European 
squabble." And even the better informed of our people found 
it not altogether easy to break with our century-long tradition 
of a happy aloofness from all Old-World quarrels. 

Such indifference or apathy, however, needed a moral force 
to give it positive strength. And this moral force for neutrality 
was not wholly lacking. Many ardent workers, and some 
leaders, in all the great reform movements believed that in 
any war the attention of the nation would be diverted from 
the pressing need of progress at home. To them the first 
American gun would sound the knell, for their day, of all the 
refoims that they had long battled for. Still breathless from 
their lifelong wrestlings with Vested Wrongs, they failed to 
see that German militarism and despotism had suddenly 
towered into the one supreme peril to American life. And 
so many noble men, and some honored names, cast their weight 
for neutrality. And then, cheek by jowl with this misled but 
honorable idealism, there flaunted itself a coarse pro-German 
sentiment wholly un-American. Sons and grandsons of men 
who had fled from Germany to escape despotism were heard 
now as apologists for the most dangerous despotism and the 
most barbarous war methods the modern world had ever seen. 
Organized and obedient to the word of command, this element 
made many weak politicians truckle to the fear of " the German 
vote." 

These forces for neutrality were strengthened by one other 
selfish motive. The country had begun to feel a vast business 
prosperity. Some forms of business were demoralized for a 
time ; but soon the European belligerents were all clamoring 
to buy all our spare products at our own prices — munitions 
of war, food, clothing, raw materials. To be sure, the English 
navy soon shut out Germany from direct trade, though she 
long continued an eager customer, indirectly, through Holland 
and Denmark ; but in any case the Allies called ceaselessly 
for more than we could produce. Non-employment vanished ; 
wages rose by bounds ; new fortunes piled up as by Aladdin's 



630 



THE WORLD WAR AND AMERICA 



Germany 
makes neu- 
trality im- 
possible 



Quarrel 
over muni- 
tions 



magic. A busy people, growing richer and busier day by day, 
ill-informed about the real causes of the war, needed some 
mighty incentive to turn it from the easy, peaceful road of 
prosperous industry into the stern, rugged paths of self-denial 
and war. A little wisdom, and Germany might readily have 
held us bound to neutrality in acts at least, if not always in 
feeling. 

But more and more Germany made neutrality impossible for 
vs. From the first the German government actively stirred 
up bad feeling toward us among its own people because our 
people used the usual and legal rights of citizens of a neutral 
power to sell munitions of war to the belligerents. Germany 
had securely supplied herself in advance, and England's navy 
now shut her out from the trade in any case. So she tried, 
first by cajolery and then by threats, to keep us from selling 
to her enemies — which would have left them at her mercy, 
taken by surprise and unprepared as they were. 

Our legal right to sell munitions she could not question 
seriously. Only two years before, she herself had been selling 
just such munitions freely to the warring Balkan nations. She 
demanded of us not that we comply with international law, but 
that we change it in such a way as to insure her victory ^ in 
such a way as would really have made us her ally. For our 
government to have yielded to her demands, and forbidden 
trade in munitions during the war, would have been not neu- 
trality, but a plain breach of neutrality — and a direct and 
deadly act of war against the Allies. 

Our government firmly refused to notice these arrogant 
German demands. And, says an authorized statement (in 
How the War Came to America) : 

"Upon the moral issue involved the stand taken by the United 
States was consistent with its traditional policy and with obvious 
common sense. For if, with all other neutrals, we refused to sell muni- 
tions to belligerents, we could never in time of a war of our own obtain 
munitions from neutrals, and the nation which had accumulated the 
largest reserves of war supplies in time of peace would be assured of 
victory. The militarist state that invested its money in arsenals would 



THE LUSITANIA 



631 



be at a fatal advantage over the free people who invested their wealth in 
schools. To write into international law that neutrals should not trade 
in munitions would be to hand over the world to the rule of the nation 
with the largest armament factories. Such a policy the United States 
of America could not accept." 



The submarine gave rise to a special controversy. The 
U-craft were not very dangerous to warships when such vessels 
were on their guard. Unarmed merchantmen they could 
destroy almost at will. But if a U-boat summoned a merchant- 
man to surrender, the merchantman might possibly sink the 
submarine by one shot from a concealed gun, and in any case 
the U-boat had little room for prisoners. Thus it soon became 
plain that submarine warfare upon merchant ships was neces-; 
sarily barbarous and in conflict with all the principles of inter- 
national law. If it were to be efficient, the U-boat must . sink 
without warning. In the American Civil War, a Confederate 
privateer, the Alabama, destroyed hundreds of Northern mer- 
chant ships, but scrupulously cared for the safety of the crews, 
and passengers. But from the first the German submarines tor-1 
pedoed English and French peaceful merchant ships without 
notice. Little chance was given even for women and children 
to get into the lifeboats, and of course many neutral passengers 
were murdered. 

And now, in February, 1915, Germany proclaimed a "sub- 
marine blockade" of the British Isles. She drew a broad zone 
in the high seas about Britain, declaring that any merchant 
ship, even of neutral nations, within those waters was liable 
to be sunk without warning. 

The world could not believe that Germany would really 
practice the crime she threatened. But May 7, 1915, the great 
English liner Lusitania was torpedoed without any attempt 
to save life. Nearly twelve hundred non-combatants were 
drowned, many of them women and children ! With charac- 
teristic mendacity, the German government then asserted^ 
falsely, that the Lusitania was really a war vessel, loaded with 
munitions. 



The sub- 
marine con- 
troversy in 
its early 
stages 



The new 
phase in 
191S 



The Lusi- 
tania 



632 



THE WORLD WAR AND NEUTRALITY 



President 
Wilson's 
" notes " 



One hundred and fourteen of the murdered Lusitania passengers 
were American citizens; and there at once went up from much 
of America a fierce cry for war ; but large parts of the country, 
remote from the seaboard, were still indifferent to a " European 
struggle," and there were not lacking some shameless apologists 
for even this dastardly massacre. President Wilson, zealous to 
preserve peace, used every resource of diplomacy to induce 



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A German Submarine on the way to surrender at the end of the war. 
This view was taken from an English airplane at night with the aid of 
a searchlight. 

Germany to give up its horrible submarine policy. At the same 
time he distinctly pointed out, in note after note, that a con- 
tinuance in that policy would force America to fight. 



The " First Lusitania Note " (after declaring that the use of sub- 
marines against merchant ships must necessarily endanger the lives of 
passengers and of neutrals, and after urging Germany to give up a prac- 
tice so contrary to civilized warfare and to the law of nations) closed, — 

" The Imperial German Government will not expect the govern- 
ment of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to 



THE LUSITANIA 633 

the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the 
United States and its citizens, and of safeguarding their free exercise " 
(June 13, 1915). 

The " Third Lusitania Note " (July 21) refused to consider the 
tissue of evasions put forward by Germany as in any way " relevant " 
to a discussion of "the grave and unjustifiable violations of .the rights 
of American citizens," and uttered solemn warning, that if these "ille- 
gal and inhuman " acts were persisted in " they would constitute an un- 
pardonable offense. . . . 

" Repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts 
in contravention of these rights must be regarded by the Government 
of the United States . . . as deliberately unfriendly.^' 

These well-meant efforts of the President were answered by 
the- German government with quibbles, cynical falsehoods, and 
contemptuous neglect. Other merchant vessels were sunk, 
and finally (March, 1916) the sinking of the Sussex, an English 
passenger ship, again involved the murder of American citizens. 
President Wilson's note to Germany took a still sterner tone 
and specifically declared that one more such act would cause 
him to break off diplomatic relations. Germany now seemed 
to give way. She promised, grudgingly and with loopholes 
for future use, to sink no more passenger or merchant ships — Wilson's 
unless they should attempt to escape capture — without pro- seeming 
viding for the safety of passengers and crews (May 4). 

This episode, running over into the third year, closed the 
first stage of this controversy. President Wilson's year of 
negotiation seemed to have won a victory for civilization. As 
he afterward complained, the precautions taken by the Ger- 
mans to save neutrals and non-combatants proved distressingly 
meager, but for some time "a certain degree of restraint was 
observed." 



CHAPTER XLVllI 



England 

fuUy 

aroused 



The German 
Crown 
Prince at- 
tacks 
Verdun 



THE THIRD YEAR, 1916 

The year 1916 brought the struggle back to the Western 
front. England had awakened from her complacency and 
was at last putting forth her full strength. The splendid vol- 
unteer army was now supplemented by conscription, wholly 
new to England, and the "work or fight" rule was applied to 
every able-bodied man between 18 and 45. The commander- 
in-chief, General French, a veteran of the Boer War, had been 
succeeded (October, 1915) at his own request by a younger man. 
Sir Douglas Haig. Haig would be ready to strike by mid- 
summer. 

Accordingly Germany planned to strike first and put France 
out before Britain was quite ready. February 21, weeks before 
campaigns would usually open in that region, she made a 
gigantic effort to deal a mortal blow by an attack on Verdun. 
The capture of that famous fortress, it was felt, would open the 
road to Paris. Certainly it would have been a terrific shock 
to the French morale. 

For four days the Germans gained ground swiftly. A vast 
concentration of artillery prepared the way for each assault, 
and then huge masses of trained soldiery carried their ob- 
jectives each day, — though with almost incredible losses. 
But France rushed in her reserves by thousands in motor busses,^ 
and after February 25 her defense steadily tightened, meeting 
the haughty German boasts with the tight-lipped defiance — 
"They shall not pass." For two months more the Germans 

' This method of transportation saved France. There was no time to 
construct military railroads, aad human legs could not do the job. The 
motor bus won a new importance. 

634 



advance on 
the Somme 



"THEY SHALL NOT PASS" 635 

kept up the attack with some expectation of final success ; and 
then for still two months more they renewed the assault from 
week to week, at a staggering cost of life, because the High 
Command dreaded the blow to its military prestige involved 
in a confession of failure. 

France was saved. The German failure was generally as- 
scribed to the Crown Prince, who had directed the campaign. 
Germany now put Hindenburg, the victor in the East, in su- 
preme command of all her armies — though Ludendorff, Chief 
of Staff, vas the real power behind him. 

July 1 the new British armies began their carefully prepared The British 
drive along the Somme. Lloyd George himself had taken over 
the ministry of munitions some months before ; and this time — 
for the first time during the war — the English had a superiority 
in guns and high explosives, while their tanks, now used fbst, 
wrought terrible havoc in the German lines. But the intended 
French drive, further south, did not come to a head — 
partl}^ because of exhaustion from the Verdun campaign, 
partly, it was whispered, because at this moment the French 
legislative chamber, having already driven Joffre into retire- 
ment, saw fit again to interfere disastrously with the plans of 
the military staff. The English struggled on magnificently 
for four months, winning back a considerable extent of French 
soil, with many villages, and driving a deep dent into the Ger- 
man line. But that line was still unbroken when the unusually 
severe weather of November brought the campaign to a* close. 
Two hundred thousand young Englishmen had given their 
lives, and six hundred thousand more lay mangled in hospitals. 
But they had proved that industrial England in two years had 
created and trained an army more than a match, unit for unit, 
for the veteran army of militaristic Germany. 

The war on the East front during this season furnished two Brief Rus- 
surprises on the side of the Allies, but neither was of lasting ^^^"' 
value. (1) Russia showed a remarkable recovery. Early in 
June her armies took the offensive against the Austrians. For 
a month they won swift success — in great part because their 



636 



THE WORLD WAR IN 1916 



Roumania 
enters the 
war — and 
is betrayed 
by Russia 



Conditions 
at the close 
of 1916 



opponents were largely subject Slavo-Czechs, who welcomed 
chances to surrender to a possible deliverer of their provinces 
from Austrian oppression. By July, however, the new supplies 
of Russian ammunition had again given out, and Germany had 
rushed to Austria's rescue a number of veteran divisions from 
the West front. Russia had been saved from complete collapse, 
the year before, by the desire of the Teutonic powers to crush 
Serbia and to consolidate their hold upon the Ottoman world. 
Now she was saved again for the moment by sacrificing Rou- 
mania. 

(2) For now Roumania had entered the war. This story is 
still obscure. Roumania wished of course to recover from 
Austria the great Roumanian province of Transylvania, and 
apparently the Tsar had induced her to go in too soon by 
promises of support that was never given. The German 
traitorous court party at Petrograd, now in control over the 
weak Tsar, planned a separate peace with Germany, and seems 
to have intended deliberately to buy easy terms for Russia by 
betraying Roumania to the Central Powers. Bulgarians and 
Teutons entered doomed Roumania from south and west. 
December 16 the capital fell, and only the rigors of winter 
enabled the Roumanian army to keep a hold upon a narrow 
strip of its country. The large Allied army at Saloniki did 
not stir : why is not yet fully explained. No doubt if it left 
its base, it was in peril of being stabbed in the back by Con- 
stantine of Greece ; and the Tsar vetoed all proposals of effective 
measures against that petty despot — from tenderness for a 
fellow monarch. 

« 

Thus the year 1916, too, ended gloomily. Germany had 
tremendously strengthened her position in the East, and had 
lost nothing in the West. Her supply of man-power, it was 
suspected, was running low, along with stocks of fats, rubber, 
cotton, and copper and other metals. Her poorer classes were 
suffering bitterly from undernourishment — especially the 
children, whose death-rate had tremendously increased. But 
her ruling classes felt no pinch and showed no discouragement ; 



ROUMANIA BETRAYED 637 

and the world was uncertain how far her domination in the 
East might retrieve her markets. Russia was crumbhng : 
transportation was broken down ; the industrial system — 
always crude — was practically gone ; hunger and despair 
ruled the peasantry ; and only the stubborn resistance of the 
Duma and of a few great generals seemed to prevent a sepa- 
rate Russian peace, with complete victory for Germany on 
the East. On the other hand, England, France, and Italy 
were vastly better prepared for the struggle than ever before, 
and were about ready for their maximum effort. If they could 
make that effort before Russia collapsed, they still hoped for 
success. 

And there were not wanting signs that the Allies were soon 
to receive long-delayed help from another quarter. 



CHAPTER XLIX 



Woodrow 
Wilson's re- 
election in 
1916 



German 
plots against 
neutral 
America 



THE FOURTH YRA.R, 1917 

America Enters and the War Spreads 

In America, Woodrow Wilson had been reelected President 
in November, 1916, after a peculiar campaign. Many of his 
followers, especially in the West and among the workingmen, 
shouted the slogan, "He kept us out of war." On the other 
hand, Mr. Wilson's firmness in defending American rights, and 
his plain drift toward the Allies, drew upon him the hatred 
of large organized pro-German elements. Neither party made 
the war a clear issue. 

But no sooner had the dust of this political campaign cleared 
away than the American people began to find indisputable 
proofs of new treacheries and new attacks upon us by Ger- 
many, even within our own borders. The official representatives 
of Germany in the United States, protected by their diplomatic 
position (and bound by every sort of international law and 
common decency not to interfere in any manner with our 
domestic affairs), had placed their hirelings as spies and plotters 
throughout our land. They had used German money, with 
the approval of the German government, to bribe our officials 
and even to "influence" our Congress. They had paid public 
speakers to foment distrust and hatred toward the Allies. 
They had hired agitators to stir up strikes and riots in order 
to paralyze our industries. They incited to insurrection in 
San Domingo, Haiti, and Cuba, so as to disturb our peace. 
They paid wretches to blow up our railway bridges, our ships, 
our munition plants, with the loss of millions of dollars of 
property and with the murder of hundreds of peaceful American 
workers. Each week brought fresh proof of such outrage — 

638 



AMERICA COMES IN 



639 



more and more frequently, formal proof in the courts. The 
governments of the Central Powers paid no attention to our 
complaints, or to the evidence we placed before them regard- 
ing these crimes ; and so finally President Wilson dismissed 
the Austrian ambassador (who had been directly implicated) 
and various guilty officers connected with the German embassy.^ 
All this turned our attention more and more to the hostility 
to our country plainly, avowed for years by German leaders. 
Said the Kaiser himself to our ambassador (October 22, 1915) 
at a time when our government was showing extreme gentleness 
in calling Germany to account for her murder of peaceful 
American citizens on the high seas, — "A merica had better 
look out. ... / shctll stand no nonsense from America after 
this war." Other representative Germans threatened more 
specifically that when England had been conquered, Germany, 
unable to indemnify herself in exhausted Europe for her terrible 
expenses, would take that indemnity from the rich and un- 
warlike United States. Our writers began to call our attention 
to the fact that this plan had been cynically avowed in Germany 
for years before the war began (Conquest and Kultur, 102-112). 
Slowly we opened our eyes to the plain fact that just as the 
conquest of France had been intended mainly as a step to the 
conquest of England, so now the conquest of England was to 
be a step to the subjugation of America. It came home to us 
that our fancied security — unprepared for war as we were — 
was due only to the protecting shield of England's fleet. If 
Germany came out victor from the European struggle, we must 
give up forever our unmilitaristic life, and turn our country 
jyermanently into a huge camp, on a European model, as our 
only chance for safety from invasion and rapine — and there was 
much doubt whether time would be given us to form such a 
camp. To li\e in peace, as we wished to live, we must help 
crush the militaristic power that hated and despised and at- 
tacked peace. German despotism and peace for free peoples 

' For proven guilt, see the notes to President Wilson's Flag Day Address, 
as published by the Committee of Public Information, Washington, D.C. 



German 
threats and 
hostility 



America 
forced to 
choose be- 
tween tem- 
porary war 
and per- 
manent 
militarism 



640 



THE WORLD WAR IN 1917 



Wilson's 
final at- 
tempts for 
peace 



Germany 
resumes 
" unre- 
stricted " 
submarine 
warfare 



The United 
States 
breaks off 
diplomatic 
relations 



could not exist in the same world. We had long hoped to 
keep the peace by being peaceful. But now peace had gone. 
We could win peace back only by fighting for it. 

President Wilson strove still to avoid war. At the same 
time he had begun to speak solemn warning to our own people 
that we could not keep out of the struggle, or out of some like 
struggle, unless peace could be secured soon and upon a just 
basis. December 22, he sent to all the warring governments 
a note asking them to state their aims. The Allies demanded 
"restoration and reparation," with an adjustment of disputed 
territories according to the will of the inhabitants, and "guar- 
antees" for future safety against German aggression. Germany 
replied evasively, making it plain that her own suggestion at 
this same time for a peace conference was merely sparring for 
time. 

Then, January 22, 1917, the President read to Congress a 
notable address proposing a League of Nations to enforce Peace, 
and outlining the kind of peace which, he thought, the United 
States would join in guaranteeing, — not a Caesar's peace, 
not a peace of despotic and irresponsible governments, but a 
peace made by free peoples {among whom the small nations 
should have their full and equal voice) and "made secure by 
the organized major force of mankind." 

Germany had ready a new fleet of enlarged submarines, and 
she was about to resume her barbarous warfare upon neutrals. 
She thought this might join the United States to her foes ; but 
she held us impotent in war, and believed she could keep us 
busied at home. To this last end, through her ambassador at 
Washington — while he was still enjoying our hospitality — 
she had been trying secretly, as we learned a little later, to get 
Mexico and Japan to join in an attack upon us, promising them 
aid and huge portions of our western territory. 

January 31, the German government gave a two-weeks 
notice that it was to renew its "unrestricted" submarine 
policy, explaining to its own people with moral callousness, 
why it had for a time appeared to yield to American pressure — 



AMERICA COMES IN 641 

and offering to America an insulting privilege of sending one 
ship a week to England provided it were painted in stripes of 
certain colors and width, and provided it followed a certain 
narrow ocean lane marked out by Germany. President Wilson 
at once dismissed the German ambassador, according to his 
promise of the preceding March, and recalled Ambassador 
Gerard from Berlin. By March 1, Germany had begun again 
actually to sink passenger ships and murder more Americans.^ 
The temper of the nation was changing swiftly. Apathy van- 
ished. Direct {*nd open opposition to war there still was from ex- 
treme pacifists and from pro-Germans, including the organization 
of the Socialist party : but the great majority of the Nation 
roused itself to defend the rights of mankind against a dangerous 
government running amuck, and turned its eyes confidently 
to the President for a signal. And April 2 President Wilson 
appeared before the new Congress, met in special session, to Declaration 

ask it to declare that we were now at war with Germany. ° ^"j 

^ April 6, 1917 

April 6, by overwhelming votes, that declaration was adopted. 
America went to war not to avenge slights to its "honor," 
or merely to protect the property of its citizens, or even merely 
to protect their lives at sea. America went to war not merely 
in self-defense. We did war for this, but more in defense of 
free government, in defense of civilization, in defense of hu- 
manity. Said President Wilson in his War Message : 

" The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a American 
war against all mankind. . . . The challenge is to all. . . . Neu- war aims 
trality is no longer feasible or desirable, when the peace of the world 

1 Besides the eight American vessels sunk before March, 1916, eight had 
been sunk in the one month from February 3 to March 2, 1917. During the 
two months, February and March, 105 Norwegian vessels were sunk, with the 
loss of 328 lives. By April 3, 1917, according to figures compiled by the 
United States government, 686 neutral vessels had been sunk by Germany 
without counting American ships. When we turn to the still more important 
question of lives, we count up 226 American citizens slain by the action of 
German submarines before April, 1917. For details, see The War Message 
and the Facts behind It : published by the Committee on Public Information, 
Washington, D.C. Before the close of the war, 5000 Norwegian citizens 
were murdered in like manner. 



642 THE WORLD WAR IN 1917 

is involved, and the freedom of its peoples, and when the menace to 
that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic govern- 
ments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their 
will, not the will of their people. . . . We have no quarrel with the 
German people. ... A steadfast concert for peace can never be 
maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No auto- 
cratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it. Only free 
peoples . . . can prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow inter- 
ests of their own. . . . 

" We are now about to accept the gage of battle with the natural 
foe to liberty. . . . We are glad ... to fight for the ultimate peace 
of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German people 
included. ... 

" The world must be made safe for democracy. . . . We have 
no selfish ends. We desire no conquests, no dominion. We seek 
no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensations for the sacri- 
fices we shall freely make. 

" It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful country into war, 
into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself 
seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than 
peace ; and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried 
nearest our hearts — for democracy, for the right of those who submit 
to authority to have a voice in their own goverimients, for the rights 
and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by 
such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all 
nations. . . . 

" To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, every- 
thing that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those 
who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend 
her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happi- 
ness and for the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, 
she can do no other." 

American Splendid was the awakening of America, following quickly 

"'"^ on the President's call. True, some misled pacifists and the 

positive pro-German forces still did their utmost to give aid 
and comfort to the Kaiser. Patriotic pacifists, however, like 
Mr. Bryan, recognized that to oppose our entering the war 
was a matter of judgment, but that now to hinder the success 
of America in the war was treason. Mr. Bryan had resigned 
from the Cabinet, in June of 1915, as a protest against the 
President's firmness in pressing the Lusitania matter : but now 



THE WAR SPREADS 643 

he promptly declared, "The quickest road to peace is through 
the war to victory"; and he telegraphed the President an 
offer of his services in any capacity. Henry Ford, who had led 
a shipload of peace enthusiasts to Europe the year before, to 
plead with the warring governments there, now placed his great 
automobile factories absolutely at the disposal of the govern- 
ment, and soon became a valued worker in one of the govern- 
ment's new War Boards. Charles Edward Russell, choosing 
to be an American rather than a Socialist if he could not be 
both, became one of a great Commission to Russia, and on his 
return supported and explained the war with voice and pen. 
Like action was taken by other leading Socialists, as by John 
Spargo and Upton Sinclair. And the oldest Socialist paper 
in America, The Appeal to Reason, soon declared itself con- 
A-inced by President Wilson's statements, and came out as The 
Neio Appeal in support of the war. The great majority of 
Americans of German birth or descent also rallied promptly to 
the flag of the land they had chosen. Most important of all, 
the organized wage-earners spoke with emphasis and unity for 
America and democracy. Led by their president, Samuel 
Gompers, the delegates of the American Federation in Novem- 
ber, by a vote of 21,579 local unions as against 402, organized 
the Alliance for Labor and Democracy to support the war. 

And now the war' spread more widely still. Cuba at once The war 
followed the example of the United States in declaring war ^^^^^ ^ 
against Germany, and most of the countries of South and 
Central America either took the same action within a few months 
or at least broke off diplomatic relations with the Central 
European Powers. Portugal had entered the war in 1916, 
because of her close alliance with England. Siam came in a 
little later, as did China upon invitation from the tlnited States. 

This lining up of the world had mighty moral value, and no 
small bearing upon the matter of supplies. In particular, the 
German ships which, since the beginning of the war, had been 
seeking refuge in the harbors of these new belligerents were 



644 



THE WORLD WAR IN 1917 



now seized for the Allies, and helped to make good the losses 
due to submarines. Few of these Powers except America, 
however, had much direct effect upon military operations. 



German 
success in 
1917 



The Russian 
Revolution : 
the pro- 
visional 
govern- 
ment of 
Constitu- 
tional 
Democrats 



The Keren- 
sky govern- 
ment 



And in spite of the entry of America, Germany continued 
to win great success in 1917. As the Germans had hoped, 
Russia dropped out. The Tsar's reactionary or incompetent 
ministers had maddened the Petrograd populace by permitting 
or preparing breakdown in the distribution of food. March 11, 
the populace rose. The troops joined the rioters, and the rising 
quickly became a political revolution. Absolutely deserted by 
all classes, Nicholas abdicated on March 15. The Liberal 
leaders of the Duma (Constitutional Democrats led by Miliukov) 
proclaimed a provisional government, which was promptly 
and peacefully accepted by the army and by the nation. Op- 
timists among the Allies believed that Russia had merely passed 
from an inefficient autocracy to a sane and efficient republic. 
Keener-eyed thinkers warned (1) that, in the complete collapse 
of her industrial system, Russia would almost inevitably be 
forced into the hands of extremists ; and (2) that the huge 
empire would probably break up into separate and possibly 
warring states — which in the past had had no real bond of 
union except the perished autocracy. 

These gloomy surmises proved correct. The provisional gov- 
ernment of Miliukov could not stand the strain of foreign war 
and of internal dissolution, and in a few weeks (June, 1917) it 
was replaced by a Socialist-democratic government led by 
Kerensky. This interesting man was an emotional, well-mean- 
ing enthusiast, — a talker rather than a doer, altogether unfit 
to grapple with the tremendous difficulties before Russia. 
Finland, the Ukrainian districts, and Siberia were showing signs 
of breaking away from central Russia. Everywhere the 
peasants had begun to appropriate the lands of the great es- 
tates, sometimes quietly, sometimes with violence and outrage. 
The army was completely demoralized. The peasant soldiers, 
so often betrayed by their officers, were eager for peace, that 



THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 



645 



they might go home to get their share of the land. In all large 
cities, extreme Socialists began to win support for a further 
revolution, and in some places anarchists were taking the lead. 
Kerensky battled against these conditions faithfully, and for 
a while with some show of success. He tried zealously to con- 
tinue the war, and, in July, he did induce part of the demoralized 
army to take up the offensive once more. But after slight 
successes, the military machine collapsed. Whole regiments 
and brigades mutinied, murdered their hated officers, broke 
up, and went to their homes. The remaining army was in- 
toxicated with the new political "liberty," and fraternized with 
the few German regiments left to watch it. Russia was really 
"out of the war." After a six-months rule, Kerensky fled 
from the extremists, and (November 7, 1917) these extreme 
Socialists (the Bolsheviki) seized the government and an- 
nounced their determination to make peace. 

During the chaos under Kerensky, the real power over 
nearly all Russia had fallen to new councils of workmen's 
delegates (with representatives also from the army and the 
peasantry). The Bolsheviki had seen that these " Soviets," 
rather than the old agencies, had become the real govern- 
ment, and by shrewd political campaigning they captured 
these bodies, so securing control over the country. 

It should be clearly recognized, however, that no Russian 
government could have continued the war. The Russian 
people had borne greater sacrifice than any other; they 
were absolutely without resources ; they were unspeakably 
weary of war ; and they failed to see that German victory 
would mean the return of the Tsar. 

In the West the Allies had begun the spring campaigns in 
high hopes. The French had borne the heaviest burden so far, 
but they were ready for one more supreme blow. Their new 
commander, Nivelle, was a brilliant general, but his plans be- 
came known to the enemy, probably by treachery, and his great 
offensive on the Aisne was heavily repulsed. He was super- 



The Bol- 
shevik 
Revolution : 
Russia out 
of the war 



The cam- 
paign in the 
West 

Nivelle 's 
failure on 
the Aisne 



646 



THE WORLD WAR TN 1917 



seded by Petain, the hero of Verdun ; but the army was so 
demoralized and discouraged that it could undertake no further 
important operations during the season. Whole regiments melted 
away, to go home ; and Petain found it unadvisable to punish 
even such wholesale desertion. 

Very early in the season the Germans had executed an ex- 
tended withdrawal in front of the British lines from their 
trenches of two years' warfare to a new " Hindenburg Line," 




t uiiyi iuiU by Underwood and Underwood. 
General Petain Decorating a. French Soldier at Arches, in the Vosges. 



The Ger- 
man 

" strategic 
retreat " to 
the " Hin- 
denburg 
Line." 
The great 
British 
offensive 



which, they boasted, had been prepared so as to be absolutely 
impregnable to any assault. This maneuver confessed a su- 
periority in the English fighting machine — which the Germans 
had hitherto professed to despise — but it delayed Haig's 
attack for some weeks. His heavy guns had to be brought up 
to the new positions over territory rendered almost impassable 
by the Germans in their retreat, and new lines of communica- 
tion had to be established. These things were accomplished, 
however, with a rapidity and efficiency wholly surprising to 



THE ITALIAN DANGER 



647 



the German High Command ; and in the subsequent British 
attack the Germans were saved only by the fact that now they 
were able to transfer all their best divisions from the Russian 
front to reinforce their troops pressed by the British. Even so, 
Haig continued to win important successes in Picardy and 
Flanders from April to November ; but the failure of Nivelle 
and the collapse of Russia 
made it impossible for 



him to 
to stay. 



break through" 




The Russian military 
collapse had been caused 
in part by an exceedingly 
skillful German propa- 
ganda. Russian soldiers 
had been taught persist- 
ently by German emissa- 
ries that the war was the 
Tsar's war, or at least a 
capitalist war; and that 
their German brothers 
were quite ready to give 
the new Russia a fair 
peace. A little later the 
same tactics were repeated 
successfully against Italy. In August of 1917 the Italian armies 
seemed for a while to have overcome the tremendous natural 
difficulties confronting them. They had won important battles 
and had taken key positions commanding Triest, when suddenly 
their military machine, too, went almost to pieces. The Ger- 
mans had been using with the Italian rank and §le a skillful 
propaganda. England and France, the Italian soldiers were 
told, were looking only to their own selfish ambitions, and were 
leaving Italy an unfair share of the burden of the war. Peace 
could be secured at any moment if only Italy would cease to 



Coiii/nijiii hy Underwood and Underwood. 
Field Marshal Haig. 



German 
" propa- 
ganda," 
successful 
in Russia, 
now tried in 
Italy 



648 



THE WORLD WAR IN 1917 



The Italian 
collapse 



attack Austrian territory. Meanwhile the wives and children 
of Italian soldiers were in truth famishing for bread, and infor- 
mation to this effect — both reliable and exaggerated — was 
creeping through to the ranks. 

While the Italian morale was so honeycombed, the Austrians, 
reinforced by German troops, suddenly took the offensive. 
They met at first with almost no resistance. They tore a huge 
gap in the Italian lines, took 200,000 prisoners and a great part 
of Italy's heavy artillery, and advanced into Venetia, driving 
the remnants of the Italian army before them in rout. 
French and British reinforcements were hurried in ; and the 
Italians rallied when they saw how they had been tricked and 
how their country had been opened to invaders. The Teutons 
proved unable to force the line of the Piave River; and 
Venice and the rich Lombard plain were saved. Italy had not 
been put out of the war as Russia had been ; but for the next 
six months, until well into the next year, the most that she 
could do, even with the help of Allied forces sadly needed 
elsewhere, was to hold her new line while she built up again her 
broken military machine. 



The U-boat 

campaign 

fails 



The brightest phase of the year's struggle for the Allies was 
at the point where there had seemed the greatest peril. Ger- 
many's new submarine warfare had indeed destroyed an enor- 
mous shipping tonnage, and for a few months had really promised 
to make good the threat of starving England into surrender. 
But the English navy made a supreme effort. An admirable 
convoy system was organized to protect important merchant 
fleets; shipbuilding was speeded up, to supply the place of 
tonnage sunk ; submarine chasers and patrol boats v/aged 
relentless, daring, and successful war against the treacherous 
and barbargus craft of the enemy. America sent five battle- 
ships to reinforce the British Grand Fleet, and — more to the 
purpose — a much more considerable addition to the anti- 
submarine fleet ; and newly created American shipyards had 
begun to launch new cargo ships in ever increasing numbers, 



SUBMARINES CHECKED 649 

upon a scale never before known to the world. The Allies 
were kept supplied with food and other necessaries enough to 
avert any supreme calamity. Before September, 1917, the 
menace — in its darkest form — had passed. Submarines 
remained a source of loss and serious annoyance ; but it had 
become plain that they were not to be the decisive factor in 
the war. 

Moreover, America was slowly getting into the struggle — America's 
slowly, and yet more swiftly than either friend or foe had ^^^Power 
dreamed possible. The general expectation had been that, count 
totally unprepared as the United States was for war, her chief 
contribution would be in money, ships, and supplies. These 
she gave in generous measure (Chapter L, below). But, 
also, from the first the government wisely planned for military 
participation on a huge scale. Congress was induced to pass 
a "selective conscription" act; and as early as June a small 
contingent of excellent fighters was sent to France — mainly 
from the old regular army. In the early fall, new regiments 
were transported (some 300,000 before Christmas), and per- 
haps half a million more were in training. By 1920, it was 
then thought by the hopeful, America could place three million 
men in the field in Europe, or even five million, and so decide 
the war. But cAents were to make a supreme exertion neces- 
sary even sooner ; and America was to meet the need. 



CHAPTER L 



THE LAST YEAR, 1918 



French dis- 
content and 
war-weari- 
ness 



Peace feel- 
ing in Eng- 
land 



Conditions 
in Germany 



France could stand one year more of war, but she was very 
nearly "bled white," as Germany had boasted. Her working 
classes were war-weary and discouraged, and the Germans had 
infected all classes in that country more or less successfully 
with their poisonous and baseless propaganda to the effect 
that England was using France to fight her battles, and that 
she herself was bearing far less than her proper share of the 
burden. French morale was in danger of giving way, as 
Russian and Italian had given way. It was saved by two 
things : by the tremendous energy of the aged Clemenceau — 
"The Tiger" — whom the crisis had called from his retire- 
ment to the premiership ; and by the encouraging appearance 
in PVance, none too soon, of American soldiers in large numbers. 

Even in England, peace talk began to be heard, not merely 
among the workers but here and there in all ranks of society. 
And among the laborers this dangerous leaning was fearfully 
augmented when the Russian Bolsheviki published the copies 
of the "Secret Treaties" between England, France, Italy, and 
the Tsar's government, revealing the Allied governments as 
purchasing one another's aid by promises of territorial and 
commercial spoils. For the first time the charge against the 
Allies that on their side too the war was "a capitalist and 
imperialist war" was given some color of presumption. 

In Germany, too, the masses of the people were war-weary. 
The entire generation of their young men was threatened with 
extinction, and their children were being pitifully stunted from 
lack of food. The " Independent Socialists," as Ludendorff 
now tells us, had spread among the people a peace propaganda 

650 



RACE BETWEEN GERMANY AND AMERICA 651 



which crippled seriously the efficiency of the army. The Reichs- 
tag actually adopted resolutions in favor of peace without an- 
nexations or indemnities — which from the German viewpoint 
was extremely conciliatory. But the junkers and great capital- 
ists were still bent upon complete military victory, which they 
seemed to see within their grasp ; and the German war lords at 
once made it plain that 
they recognized no bind- 
ing force in the Reichstag 
resolutions. They had 
knocked out Russia, put 
out Italy temporarily at 
least, and might now turn 
all their strength as never 
before upon France and 
England. They were con- 
fident that they could win 
the war before American 
armies could become an 
important factor. The 
Allies, they insisted, had 
not shipping enough to 
bring the Americans in 
any numbers ; still less to 
bring the supplies needful 
for them ; and then the 
Americans "couldn't fight" anyway without years of training. 

Thus in 1918 the war became a race between Germany and -iir&cehe- 

America. Could America put decisive numbers in action on *^^^°^ ^^'' 

'^^ _ many and 

the West front before Germany could deliver a knock-out blow? America 
While winter held the German armies inactive, the British and 
American navies carried each week thousands of American 
soldiers toward the front, English ships carrying much the 
greater number. 

And during these same months America and England won a 
supremely important victory in the moral field. In the sum- 




JuHx J. Pershing, Commander of 
American troops in France. 



652 



LAST YEAR OF WAR 



Wilson's 
" diplomatic 
offensive " 



mer of 1917 the Pope had suggested peace negotiation on the 
basis of July, 1914 — before the war began. Woodrow Wilson 
at once answered, for America and for the Allies, that thtre 
could be no safe peace with the faithless Hohenzollern govern- 
ment. This cleared the air, and made plain at least one of 
the "guarantees" the Allies must secure. Then Germany 
tried another maneuver : she put forward Austria to suggest 
, peace negotiations — in hope, no doubt, of weakening the 
Allied morale. Instead, in two great speeches, Lloyd George 
and President Wilson stated the war aims of the Allies with a 
studious moderation which conciliated wavering elements in 
their own countries, and at the same time with a keen logic 
that put Germany in the wrong even more clearly than before 
in the eyes of the world. Lloyd George (January 6) demanded 
complete reparation for Belgium, but disclaimed intention to 
exact indemnities other than payment for injuries done by 
Germany in defiance of international law. President Wilson's 
address contained his famous Fourteen Points. These state- 
ments of America and England drove deeper the wedge between 
the German government and the German people, by convincing 
the masses that the Allies were warring only for freedom and 
for peace, and not for the destruction of Germany. 



The Fourteen Points have had so much prominence in the months 
since, that it seems well to present here their important features. 

1. "Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which . . . 
diplomacy shall proceed always ... in the public view." 

2 and 3. [These "points" call for freedom of the seas and of trade.] 

4. [Disarmament by international agreement.] 

5. " An . . . absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims .... 
The interests of the populations concerned to "have equal weight with 
the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined." 

6. "The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement 
of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest coopera- 
tion of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered 
and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination 
of >»er own political development and national policy and assure her 
of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of 
her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every 



THE FOURTEEN POINTS 653 

kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded 
Russia by her sister nations in the months to come ivill be the add test of 
their good mil. ..." 

7. [Evacuation and "restoration" of Belgium.] 

8. [Reparation for damages in France, and return of Alsace-Lorraine.] 

9. "A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy . . . along clearly 
recognizable lines of nationality." 

10. [This point dealing with the subject peoples of Austria-Hungary* 
was soon made of little account by the progress of the war.] 

11. ... " Serbia [to be] accorded free and secure access to the sea ; 
and the relations of the Balkan states to one another determined by 
friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and 
nationality. ..." 

12. [Turkish Empire.] 

13. [An independent Poland, to "include the territories inhabited 
by indisputably Polish populations. . . ."] 

14. A "general association of nations must be formed under specific 
covenants [to afford] mutual guarantees of political independence and 
territorial integrity to great and small states alike." 

" For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and 
to continue to fight until they are achieved ; but only because we wish 
the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace, such as can be 
secured only by removing the chief provocations to war. . . . We 
have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this 
program that impairs it. We do not wish to injure her or to block in 
any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight 
her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing 
to associate herself with us and the other peace-loving nations of the 
world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her 
only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world — 
the new world in which we now live — instead of a place of mastery. ..." 

And now Germany herself made plain how absolutely right TheBrest- 
the Allies were in their contention that the HohenzoUerns could 
be trusted to keep no promises. March 3, 1918, the German 
militarists, with the grossest of bad faith, shamelessly broke 
their many pledges to the helpless Bolsheviki and forced upon 
Russia the " Peace of Brest-Li to vsk." By that dictated treaty, 
Germany virtually became overlord to a broad belt of vassal 
states taken from Russia — Finland, the Baltic Provinces, 
Lithuania, Poland, Ukrainia — and even the remaining "Great 
Russia" had to agree to German control of her industrial re- 



Litovsk 
Treaty 



654 



LAST YEAR OF WAR 








Danzig "'^""'^'""O V.lH.-p- yy 
GERMANY Jj ^ 

'P <) L A ?» I) ' ' -' L>tovsk 



AUSTRIA- 
HUNGARY 



^•-■"l./, ..J- 



\ 




( R U M A N I 

<' BurharPHiO 
_> BULGARIA 



TERRITORY SURRENDERED BY RUSSIA 
AT BREST-LITOVSK 

i) 10 20 30 40 
Scale of Mil 



BREST-LITOVSK 



655 



organization. When the German perfidy had revealed itself 
suddenly, after long and deceitful negotiations, the angered 
and betrayed Bolsheviki wished to break off, and renew the 
war. They were absolutely helpless, however, without prompt 
Allied aid upon a large scale. This aid they asked for, but 
urgent cablegrams brought no answer. The Allies apparently 




The Mittel-Europa Empire at its greatest extent in March, 1918. In 
Asia, only a few months before, it had reached to the Persian Gulf and 
the Red Sea (cf. p. 661). 



had been so repelled by the Bolshevist industrial and political 
policy that they were unwilling to deal with that government, 
and preferred to leave Russia to its fate — and to the Germans. 
At that moment the result was disastrous. Murmurs in 
Germany against the war were stilled by the immediate prospect 
of an empire stretching from the North Sea to the Pacific, and 
of large accumulated stores of Russian wheat — as soon as 
transportation systems could be restored to efficiency. 



656 



LAST YEAR OF WAR 



The great 
German 
offensive 
in Picardy 
in March 



In all the Allied countries tremendous popular feeling was 
aroused against the Bolsheviki. In part this was because 
the Allied peoples — ignorant of the facts just mentioned 
— believed that government a mere tool of ^Germany. 
In part it was due to hatred and fear among propertied 
classes toward any Socialist regime. But more than all 
else, it was due to a false positipn adopted by the Bol- 
sheviki in government — excluding all people living on their 
capital from political life. 

This of course was not democracy : it was class rule. 
True, in Russia it was the rule of a large per cent of 
the whole population ; but the example of a " proletarian 
dictatorship" was dreaded by the "upper" and "middle" 
classes everywhere. Moreover, the Bolsheviki announced 
a repudiation of the Russian national debt.^ The Russian 
bonds were owned mainly in France ; and that country 
persuaded the Allies to treat the Russian government as 
an enemy. Soon, top, various reactionary and middle- 
class movements against the Bolshevik tyranny found 
leaders for a vigorous civil war. 

Naturally the Germans opened the campaign in the West at 
the earliest moment possible. They had now a vast superiority 
both in men and in heavy guns there. March 21 they attacked 
the British lines in Picardy with overwhelming forces. After 
five days of terrific fighting the British were hurled out of their 
trench lines and driven back with frightful losses nearly to 
Amiens, leaving a broad and dangerous gap between them and 
the French. It looked as though the Germans niight drive 
the British into the sea, or the French back upon Paris, or both. 
But, as so often in their great offensives in this war, the Ger- 
mans had exhausted themselves in their mass attack ; and, 
while they paused, a French force threw itself into the gap, and 
British reserves reinforced the shattered front lines. For the 
first time since the First Battle of the Marne, the Germans had 
forced the fighting into the open, where they had always claimed 

' They afterward offered to give up this policy if accorded recognition. 



"BACKS TO THE WALL" 



657 



marked superiority ; but they were unable to follow up their 
success decisively. 

In April they struck again farther north, in Flanders, and 
again they seemed almost to have overwhelmed the British; 




The War on the West Front. — German lines on July 15 and 
November 10, 1918. 

but fighting desperately, "with our backs to the wall," as Haig The oflfen- 
phrased it in his solemn order to his dying army, and rein- pj^^^g 
forced by some French divisions, the British kept their front in April 
unbroken, bent and thinned though it was. 



658 



LAST YEAR OF WAR 



The offen- 
sive on the 
Aisne in the 
last of May 



Checked by 
Americans 
at Chateau- 
Thierry 



Time given 
for the 
Americans 
to arrive 



The Germans took another month for preparation, and then 
struck fiercely in a general attack on the French lines north of 
the Aisne. Apparently the French were taken by surprise. 
The Germans broke through, for the moment, on an eighteen- 
mile front, and once more reached the Marne. Here, however, 
they were halted, largely by American troops, at Chateau- 
Thierry. Then, while the 
Americans made splendid 
counter-attacks, as at 
Belleau Wood (renamed, 
for them, "Wood of the 
Marines"), the French 
lines were reformed, so 
that still the Allies pre- 
sented a continuous front, 
irregular though it was 
with dangerous salients 
and wedges. At almost 
the same time, Austria, 
forced into action again 
in Italy by German in- 
sistence, was repulsed in 
a general attack on the 
Piave. 

Time was fighting for 
the Allies. The disasters 
of the early spring, the suggestion of the American commander. 
General Pershing, and the imperative demand of Clemenceau, at 
last induced them to take the wise step of appointing a general- 
issimo. This position was given to Ferdinand Foch, victor of 
the First Marne. For the rest of the struggle, the Allied forces 
were directed with a unity and skill that had been impossible 
under divided commands, even with the heartiest desire to 
cooperate. 

And now, too, America really had an army in France. Before 
the end of June, her effective soldiers there numbered 1,250,000. 




Copyright by Underwood and Underwood. 
Ferdinand Foch. 



(JERMANY FAIl.S 659 

Each month afterward brought at least 300,000 more. By 
September the pumber exceeded two million. 

The German.s could not again take up the offensive for five The last 
weeks (June ll-Jidy 15), and in this interval the balance of o^e^j^g 
available man-power seems to have turned against them. 
Hindenburg and Ludendorff believed only in mass attacks over 
wide fronts. When one of these gigantic onsets had once 
bc^en stopped, with its tremendous losses and demoralization, 
a considerable inter^'al had to elapse before another could begin. 
July 15 preparations were complete, and the Germans attacked 
again in great force along the Marne, expecting this time to 
reach positions that would command Paris. But the onset 
broke against a stone-wall resistance of French and American 
troops. For the first time in the war, a carefully prepared offen- 
sive failed to gain ground. 

The German failure was plain by the 17th. On the 18th, Foch's con- 
before the Germans could withdraw or reorganize, Foch heqan *^""?"^ °*" 

o ' ^ tensive 

his great offensive, by counter-attacking upon the exposed western 
flank of the invaders. This move took the Germans completely 
by surprise. Their front all but collapsed along a critical line 
of twenty-eight miles. Foch allowed them no hour of rest. Un- 
like his opponents, he did not attempt gigantic attacks, to 
break through at some one point. Instead, he kept up a con- 
tinuous offensive, threatening every part of the enemy's front, 
but striking now here, now there, on one exposed flank and then 
on another, always ready at a moment to take advantage of a 
new opening, and giving the Germans no chance to withdraw 
their forces without imperiling key positions. He took no in- 
tervals for rest — which would have allowed the enemy to at- 
tempt a new offensive — but kept the ball in his own hands. 

By the end of July the invaders had been pushed out of the The German 
ground they had gained in May and June, between the Aisne ^^^^^^ 
and the Marne. Then the British, reorganized now, were 
brought again into action in Picardy, taking the burden of the 
offensive, while the French kept up activity enough to prevent 
any transfer of reinforcements to that district from the sector 



660 



LAST YEAR OF WAR 



The Ameri- 
cans at 
Sedan 



Germany 
asks for an 
armistice 



opposite them. For some weeks, the Americans, steadily grow- 
ing in numbers and equipment, were held in reserve for the most 
part — after their gallant fighting in stopping the last German 
offensive — but before the end of August the British and French 
had won back all the ground lost in the German offensives of 
the spring. 

The Germans had made their last throw — and lost. Foch's 
pressure never relaxed. In September American divisions be- 
gan an offensive on a third part of the front, culminating in a 
drive toward Sedan, to cut one of the two main railways that 
supplied the German front. At the same time the British 
were wrenching great sections of the "Hindenburg Line" from 
the foe. • In the opening days of October the German commanders 
reported to Berlin that the war was lost, and that it was necessary 
to get peace by negotiation. For the next month, while there 
went on an exchange of notes regarding an armistice, the 
German military situation grew steadily more critical. 



Bulgaria 
had ah-eady 
fallen 



At the same time, it is true that Germany lasted longer than 
any of her allies and that her collapse was determined largely 
by events in the East. In September the Allied force, so long 
held inactive at Saloniki, suddenly took the offensive, crushing 
the Bulgarians in a great battle on the Vardar. Political 
changes had made this move possible. In 1917, now that the 
Tsar could no longer interfere, the English and French had 
deposed and banished King Constantine of Greece ; and Veni- 
zelos, the new head of the Greek state, was warmly committed 
to the Allied cause. Moreover, the Bulgarians were war- 
weary and demoralized. They had failed to get from Germany 
and Austria the spoils they hoped for at the fall of Roumania ; 
and now after their one great defeat they had neither spirit 
nor forces to continue the struggle. Foch's pressure made it 
impossible for the Germans to transfer reinforcements to them 
from the West. The Saloniki forces advanced swiftly into 
Bulgaria. Tsar Ferdinand abdicated, and (September 30) the 
Provisional Bulgarian government signed an armistice amount- 



COLLAPSE OF AUSTRIA 661 

ing to unconditional surrender and opening also the way for an 
attack upon Austria from the south. 

And while these events were happening, a wholly independent And Turkey 
series of movements were putting Turkey out of the war. In 
the spring of 1917 an English force from India worked its way 
up the Tigris and took Bagdad — after a romantic campaign 
that recalls the wars and marches of Alexander the Great in the 
Orient — and in the fall of the same year, another British force 
from Egypt took Jerusalem. But the Russian collapse en- 
dangered both these promising movements, and the pressure 
of the Germans on the West front made it unsafe for England 
then to send more men to either of these important Eastern 
districts. But by midsummer of 1918, reinforcements were 
sent at last to Palestine; and September 19, the British re- 
sumed a remarkable campaign north of Jerusalem. The Turks 
were utterly routed in a decisive battle, and the pursuit was so 
hot and so continuous that they never rallied in any force. 
Aleppo, the key to Northern Syria, surrendered October 26, 
without a blow — and with it fell the Ottoman Empire outside 
Asia Minor. The Turks saw that the collapse of Bulgaria had 
isolated them from any possible German succor — and in any 
case Germany was no more able to spare troops now for them 
than a- month before for Bulgaria. The Turkish government 
at Constantinople fled. A new one was hastily constituted, 
and, October 30, Turkey surrendered as abjectly as Bulgaria. 
The Dardanelles were opened, and Constantinople admitted 
an Allied garrison. 

Austria too had dissolved. After the June repulse on the And Austria 
Piave, the Austrian army was never fit for another offensive. 
At home the conglomerate state was going to pieces. Bohemia 
on one side, and Slovenes, Croats, and Bosnians on the other 
were organizing independent governments — with encourage- 
ment from America and the Allies. Then, October 24, Italy 
struck on the Piave. The Austrian army broke in rout. Austria 
called frantically for an armistice, and when one was granted 
(November 4), the ancient Hapsburg Empire had vanished. 



662 



LAST YEAR OF WAR 



The Allies 
refuse to 
treat with 
the German 
autocracy 



German 
revolution 



The ar- 
mistice, 
Novem- 
ber II 



The Emperor Karl (recent successor to the old Francis Joseph) 
abdicated. Fugitive archdukes and duchesses crowded Swiss 
hotels. And each day or two saw a new revolutionary republic 
set up in some part of the. former Hapsburg realms. 

Germany had begun to treat for surrender a month earlier, 
but held out a week longer. October 5, the German Chan- 
cellor (now Prince Max of Baden) had asked President Wilson 
to arrange an armistice, offering to ac'cept his "Fourteen Points" 
as a basis for peace. Wilson's replies to this and to a following 
communication made it plain that America and the Allies would 
not treat with the old despotic government, and that no ar- 
mistice would be granted at that late moment which did not 
secure to the Allies fully the fruits of their military advantages 
in the field. The fighting went on, with terrific losses on both 
sides, but with daily increase in the military superiority of the 
Allies. The French and Americans, pushing north in the Argonne 
and across the Meuse, were threatening the trunk railway at 
Sedan, the only road open for German retreat except the one 
through Belgium. The British and Belgians pushed the dis- 
couraged invaders out of northern France and out of a large 
part of Belgium. The pursuit at every point was so hot that 
retreat had to be foot by foot, or in complete rout ; and it was 
not clear that even that choice would long remain. As a last 
desperate throw, the German war lords ordered the Kiel fleet to 
sea, to engage the English fleet ; but the common sailors, long 
on the verge of mutiny, broke into open revolt, while over all 
Germany the Extreme Socialists — all along opposed to the war 
— were openly preparing revolution. 

Not till late in October did the War Council of the Allies 
make known to Germany the terms upon which she could have 
an armistice preliminary to the drafting of a peace treaty. By 
those terms Germany could sa\e her arm\' from destruction, 
and her territory would not suffer hostile conquest. But she 
was to surrender at once Alsace-Lorraine, and to withdraw 
her troops everywhere across the .Rhine, leaving the Allies 
in possession of a broad belt of German territory. She 



THE GERMAN REVOLUTION 663 

was also to surrender her fleet, most of her heavy artillery, 
her aircraft, and her railway engines. Likewise she was at 
once to release all prisoners, though her own were to remain in 
the hands of the Allies. In March, Germany had treacherously 
and arrogantly set her foot upon the neck of prostrate Russia 
in the Brest-Li to vsk treaty; November 11, she made this un- 
conditional surrender to whatever further conditions the Allies 
might impose in the final settlement — though the Allies did 
pledge themselves to base their terms, with certain reservations, 
upon Mr. Wilson's Fourteen Points. 

Germany had already collapsed internally. November 7, German 
Bavaria deposed her king and proclaimed herself a republic, revolution 
State after state followed. In Berlin the Moderate Socialists 
seized the government — with the support of the aristocracy, 
who feared the rule of a more radical Socialist element. Novem- 
ber 9, deserted by the army, the Kaiser had fled to Holland, 
whence he soon sent back to Germany his formal abdication. 
German autocracy and Prussian militarism had fallen forever. 



CHAPTER LI 



WAR EFFICIENCY OF A DEMOCRACY 



America's 
task 



Fitting each 
man to his 
job 



No other war was ever so enormously destructive as was the 
World War, but neither did any other war ever give birth to 
so many healing and constructive forces. These forces the 
American student can most easily notice in America, but they 
were found also in other countries — in some respects, too, in 
more advanced forms even than here. 

For this study there are two phases, more or less intertwined : 
(1) that phase which had to do mainly with greater efficiency 
in the war itself ; and (2) that other phase which looked to a 
better and finer world after the war. The first phase is the 
theme of this chapter. 

To our own surprise, and to that of the world, we proved 
that American democracy, utterly unready for war as it was, 
could organize for war, by voluntary cooperation, more efficiently 
and swiftly than any autocracy had ever done. The task was 
not rherely to select and train three million soldiers, but to 
mobilize one hundred million people for "team work," so that 
every ability and every resource could be utilized with the ut- 
most intelligence and harmony. After all, battles in modern 
war are won mainly behind the lines. The most important 
mobilization was mobilizing our civilian population to produce 
and transport munitions and supplies, to raise food, supply 
fuel, and furnish abundant funds. 

At once the government put skilled brains at work: (1) to 
find out just what was needed in all these respects, and in what 
order, so as to be able to distribute effort wisely ; (2) to find 
which men were best fitted for each job — often by systems of 

664 



WAR EFFICIENCY OF DEMOCRACY 



665 



tests in the hands of educational experts ; (3) to teach the 
nation, careless and wasteful by previous training, that to save 
food, clothing, and other supplies was just as useful and just as 
patriotic as to produce them ; and (4) first of all, to educate the 
whole people as to what the war really meant and as to the best 
ways of cooperating in all these ways to win it. 

The Committee on Public Information at Washington, created 
by President Wilson, was a new thing in human history. If a 
democracy was to turn away from all its ordinary ways of living 
in order to fight, it must be thoroughly posted on the danger 
that threatened it, and on the needs of the hour. Within a 
few months this Committee, at small expense, had published 
and circulated in every village in America more than a hundred 
different pamphlets, brief, readable, forceful, written by lead- 
ing American scholars, and distributed literally by the million. 
These publications did a marvelous work in spreading informa- 
tion and arousing will power among the people, demonstrating 
that in war itself " the pen is mightier than the sword." Most 
of these studies are of permanent scholarly value, and some of 
them are referred to in footnotes and book lists in this volume. 

With this Committee originated also the admirable organ- 
ization of Four-Minute Men, — some 5000 volunteer speakers 
to explain the causes and needs of the war in their respective 
communities to audiences gathered at the movies and at other 
entertainments. Speakers and occasions were matters of local 
arrangement ; but the central Committee put the plan in opera- 
tion and made it effective by sending to all the thousands of 
local centers at frequent intervals suggestions and information 
on which to base the speeches. 

The same Committee secured the chief of America's illus- 
trators, with a strong staff of volunteer assistants, to design 
posters and placards, — which were plentifully distributed in 
every city and village in the land to arouse more determination 
to save food and to save money to be loaned to the government. 

It is impossible to explain here the many other activities 
of the Committee — such as the cultivation of friendly feeling 



The Com- 
mittee on 
Public In- 
formation : 
American 
propaganda 



The Four- 
Minute 
Men 



War posters 



666 



THE WORLD WAR 



in South American lands, the uncovering of German plots, the 
driving a wedge between the German people and its government 
by shooting propaganda into Germany. And this Committee 
is only one instance out of many of the work of eminent Ameri- 
can chemists, historians, engineers, heads of great business 
enterprises, who served at Washington during the war as vol- 
unteers with at best only a nominal money compensation, and 
often as "one dollar a year" men. 



Raising 
funds for 
war 



Liberty 
Bonds 



The United States formed no "alliance" by treaty with any of 
the Allies, but it recognized that they and we were " associated" 
as co-workers, and that we must give them every possible aid. 

Money we furnished freely. To England, France, Italy, and 
Belgium (and to Russia before her collapse) we loaned nearly 
ten billions of dollars, most of which, it is true, was used by those 
governments in purchasing supplies in America. Within a few 
months after the war began, the special session of Congress in 
the spring and summer of 1917 appropriated the unparalleled 
sum of twenty-two billions of dollars for war purposes. Five 
billions of this were loaned to the government at once by citizens 
of all classes in the purchase of the first and second issue of 
Liberty Bonds (August and October, 1917). These bonds were 
sold mostly in small denominations, down to $50, and were taken 
largely by people of small means. During this first season one 
out of every ten people in the United States (children and all) 
became a bond-holder by so loaning to the government. During 
the next year and a half, by three more bond issues, the govern- 
ment borrowed of our people, including the earlier issues, 17 
billions. For the fourth issue alone, the largest loan, there 
were 21 million subscribers, or one of every five inhabitants. 
Besides all this, vast sums were loaned to the government in 
even smaller amounts, by the purchase of Thrift Stamps (25 
cents each) and War Savings Stamps ($5). This, too, is a way 
to encourage small savings that will surely be continued after 
the war (cf. p. 502). 

The amazing success of these loans — which for the most 



WAR EFFICIENCY OF DEMOCRACY 667 

part were heavily oversubscribed — is the more marked be- 
cause the interest was low and l^ecause money at that time could 
earn much higher return in many other ways. 

But we had to raise money also by taxation. The first War War taxes 
Revenue bill provided for direct taxes to raise two and a half 
billions a year, and a subsequent bill increased the amount to 
more than four billions a year. Half of this came from a 
gradtiated income tax and allied taxes (an inheritance tax, and 
an "excess profits" tax). The income tax took 2 per cent of 
a small income ^ and rose by steep degrees to 65 per cent of very 
large incomes. Moreover, large amounts were raised by a 
"luxury tax," payable on a great variety of articles of clothing 
costing more than a certain price. In general, a serious effort 
was made by America to arrange the system of taxes so that 
for the first time in the world the cost of war should not fall 
mainly on the working classes. 



England needed our cotton and wheat, and France and Saving food 
Italy could not fight longer without our iron and coal as well. *"^ *:°1°^ 
These things we strove to send. But all the Allies, stripped of feed our 
their own farm workers, needed American food ; and our poor ^^®^ 
harvest in 1917 left us no surplits above our ordinary consumption. 

This was an alarming condition. To meet it, Congress gave 
the President extraordinary powers over the nation's resources. 
The President created a Food Commission, headed by Herbert 
C. Hoover, an American business man and engineer, who for the 
three years preceding had shown signal administrative ability 
and devotion to humanity as head of the American Relief Com- 
mission in starving Belgium. When we entered the war, Mr. 
Hoover and his American associates in Belgium had been 
obliged to return to the United States. 

This Commission, by spreading information broadcast and 
by skillful appeals kept everywhere before the eye, induced the 
American people voluntarily and cheerfully to limit its con- 

' Each taxpayer was allowed $1000 income exempt from taxation ; 
husband and wife, $2000 ; and $200 more was exempt for each minor child. 



668 



THE WORLD WAR 



War saving 
a demo- 
cratic vol- 
untary 
movement 



sumption, and especially to "save the waste." Wheatless and 
meatless days each week, agreed upon according to the Com- 
mission's "request" and enforced by public opinion, and a 
rigid limit on the amount of sugar allowed to any locality, made 
it possible for our government to export huge amounts of these 
three most essential foods for the peoples whose armies were 
fighting our battles in Europe. 

By saving waste, and by using substitutes, we cut down our 
use of wheat for one year almost half; and the half so saved 
gave to every person in England, France, and Italy almost as 
much as we used at home. We had less than 20 millions of 
bushels to export in 1917, if we used as much as usual at home ; 
but, by doing without, we did export 141 million bushels. 

The statement regarding the savings brought about among 
the people by voluntary consent is by no means complete. 
The women's committees of the Defense Councils issued cook 
books to show the housewife how to save and how to use what 
had previously gone to the garbage can, and, through the action 
of local committees and Red Cross societies, these books received 
a wide welcome. In 1918, on the advice of the National Com- 
mercial Economy Board, manufacturers of clothing put forth 
fewer and simpler styles, omitting all needless buttons, frills, 
belts, collars, and so on. This alone saved millions of yards 
of cloth — fifteen per cent, it is estimated, of the cloth usually 
needed for men's clothing, and twenty-five per cent for women's. 

Along with the saving, went also, of course, work for in- 
creased production. Farmers increased their acreage for the 
most needed crops, receiving from State or Nation necessary 
advances in money for seed or machinery. Needed farm labor 
was furnished by volunteer school boys — who were allowed 
school credits for the time so spent. And a vast amount of food 
was raised in new "war gardens" on small private grounds which 
before had been devoted, very rightfully, to beauty and pleasure. 



To prevent the European demand from raising prices 
exorbitantly, and to check speculation in foodstuffs, the Com- 



WAR EFFICIENCY OF DEMOCRACY 669 

mission took important steps in fixing fair prices and in regulat- War prot- 
ing profits. This last, it must be said, was not wholly success- f ^^"i°\ ij 
ful. Congress had not given the President power enough, in check 
vast as was his power, or else that power was not fully exercised. 
The price of wheat flour, for instance, was Qxed ; but the millers 
took advantage of the patriotic determination of the country 
to use less needed grain, like rye flour and oatmeal, by raising 
the prices of these flours exorbitantly. This was one instance 
of disgraceful "profiteering." There were others. Huge "war 
fortunes " sprang up by thousands. And the government did not 
prove strong enough successfully to prosecute and punish any big 
profiteer. 

To carry supplies to Europe in spite of the ravages of sub- Shipbuilding 
marines, a new Shipping Board built ships on a scale beyond 
all precedent. First of all, new shipyards had to be built, 
and whole new cities to house the tens of thousands of new 
shipbuilders — who in turn had to be trained for their new work. 
Like much else in our haste, all this was not done without some 
sad blunders and much extravagance. But it ivas done, and done 
stviftly. In less than a year, America's new plants were turning 
out ships much faster than England's centuries-old yards had 
ever launched them. The new shipyards beat the submarine — 
and America could afford some extravagance in that work in 
return for speed. 

Transportation at home had its own problems. The rail- The rail- 
roads began to break down almost at once under the increased ^°^^^ 
business imposed upon them by the war; and the nation felt 
keenly the waste of so many non-cooperating systems. In 
December of the first year, Congress passed a law turning the 
railroads over to the government — for the period of the war — 
guaranteeing profits to the owners, and the government began 
to operate them as one system. Telegraph and express com- 
panies also passed into government hands. 

The mines were not ready on short notice to supply coal as Saving coal 
fast as war needs called for it. Coal for ships and railroads and ^^^ gasoUne 



670 



THE WORLD WAR 



for many war industries we had to have. Accordingly the 
government regulated its private use. People learned to save 
fuel, to heat their houses and offices only to 65° instead of to 
70° or 72°, and many changed their heating plants so as to use 
wood. For many weeks in 1918, at the request of the govern- 
ment, churches were closed, and stores, amusement halls, and 




Fleet of Airplanes over San Diego, California, suggesting on what a vast 
scale this country developed her aerial service during the war. 



most industries were closed on certain days of the week, to save 
coal. People grumbled a little, but joked and assented. A 
little later, to save gasoline needed in France for tanks and 
auto-trucks and aeroplanes, "gasless Sunday" took its recog- 
nized place alongside the "heatless," "wheatless," and "meat- 
less" days of each week — all essentially on government 
recommendation only. 



WAR EFFICIENCY OF DEMOCRACY 671 

It was necessar}' that America should give of her manhood as The selec- 

well as of her wealth. The results have been told in precedine; *'^j !l"^*' 

^ '^ and its 

pages. Here we may briefly note the method. success 

At the declaration of war, eager volunteers pressed forward 
for army and navy ; but what was needed was more than 
individual volunteers. America needed a wise use of the whole 
nation's resources, each man being assigned the job he could do 
best. And so, May 18, 1917, the "selective draft" became 
law. Every man and youth from 18 to 45 (by the first law only 
from 21 to 31) was required to register in his county seat, giving, 
in answer to a questionnaire, full information about his char- 
acter, training, health, and ability. All were liable for service : 
the President was to lay down principles upon which to select 
for service in the ranks those best fitted, or most easily spared 
from other service. 

Before the end of the year, half a million soldiers were train- 
ing in fifty swiftly built camps — each camp a new cit}^ — largely 
imder officers who had been trained earlier in the year in new 
officers' training camps ; and some 300,000 were already in 
France, receiving the finishing touches to their training just 
behind the trenches. When the armistice came, a year later, 
we had three million men under arms, of whom more than two 
million were doing splendid work in France. It is hard to say 
whether the Kaiser or we ourselves were the more astounded 
at the swift making of an American army. 

Along with this national activity, there was a vast volunteer Local 
activity by local democracies, always looking gladly to Wash- *<^ti^>**«s 
ington for advice and direction, but also quite ready to trust to 
their own initiative if needful. Each State had its Council of 
Defense (modeled on the Council of National Defense). Most 
of these were well supplied with State funds ; and many of them 
did exceedingly useful work in promoting unity, arousing 
interest, and suppressing possible treason within their States. 
Below each State Council, and in constant touch with it, were 
county and village councils of like character. In rural dis- 



672 



THE WORLD WAR 



Other or- 
ganizations 



The work 
of the 
women 



tricts, the schoolhouse was usually the place for such bodies 
to meet, as well as for local chapters of the Red Cross and for 
war lectures. 

Even more significant than these public organizations were 
the thousands of canvassing boards that served in the draft 
without pay ; the examining boards of busy physicians, who 
gave their time freely to secure the physical fitness of the sol- 
diers ; the volunteer bodies of village teachers, working Satur- 
days, Sundays, and nights, to classify the results of draft 
questionnaires ; the Red Cross societies in every neighborhood ; 
and the volunteer canvassers for Liberty Bond sales, wherein 
the Boy Scouts had a fine share. Democracy proved that, 
when attacked, it could put aside its ordinary work and play, 
to take on war activities with resolution, efficiency, and una- 
nimity unexcelled. 

True, there were some blots on this splendid record. Here 
and there, selfish politicians sought personal popularity by 
wrapping their country's flag about them, or tried to discredit 
or destroy rivals by false accusations of lack of patriotism — 
a desecration of the flag that cannot be too severely condemned. 
In the heat of war passion, too, some grave injustices were 
committed by honest and intelligent patriots, and some foolish 
offenders were punished too severely. Mob violence, even, 
was permitted, and in some cases against thoroughly patriotic 
men falsely accused by personal enemies. The method by 
which poor people were sometimes intimidated into taking 
more bonds than they could afford did not suit well the name 
Liberty for those bonds. These things America will regret ; but, 
spite of such blemishes, the history as a whole is a proud one. 

In all good work, women had a part. Behind each man who 
took up a rifle there stood a woman to take up the work he 
laid down. Even in America, women ran elevators, street cars, 
and motor busses, and performed new and heavy work in fac- 
tories, — especially in munition factories and in aircraft build- 
ing ; and in twenty states, college girls enlisted in the " Woman's 



WAR EFFICIENCY OF DEMOCRACY 673 

Land Army," for outdoor farm work. In England, as her men 
were drained away, five million women took up men's work, — 
an Earl's daughter sometimes toiling in a munition factory at 
the same bench with a working girl from the streets. 

In all countries this war efficiency of women gave the final 
impetus to the movement for equal suffrage. The last "argu- 
ment" against suffrage — the silly plea that a woman ought 
not to vote because she could not serve her country in war — was 
proven false. 



CHAPTER LII 

THE WORLD LEAGUE AND NEW EUROPE 

January 18, 1871, the first German Emperor placed the new 

imperial crown upon his own head at Versailles, while his 

victorious armies were still besieging Paris (p. 423). January 

18, 1919, the Peace Congress opened its meetings in the same 

room of the Versailles Palace, to reconstruct Europe after the 

fall of the German Empire. 

Attempts at There was supreme need of reconstruction. Central Europe 

working- ^^^ broken into fragments, and each fragment was tossing 
class rule m t> > & & 

Central helplessly on waves of revolution. In Germany an extreme 

Europe wing of the Socialists, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxem- 

burg, was planning a second revolution to take power from 
the "Conservative Socialists" of the Provisional Government 
into the hands of the working class. The fearless Liebknecht 
had been foremost in all Germany in opposing Prussian mili- 
tarism before the war,^ and had spent most of the war years 
in prison as a traitor to German autocracy, because he had 
dared to oppose the war even after it began. That this work of 
his had given material aid to the Allies is proven by Ludendorff 's 
story of the war (p. 650). Freed by the fall of autocracy, 
Liebknecht now taught that selfish capitalist and imperialist 
forces would try to make a peace of plunder. Only a working- 
man's government in Germany, he preached, and the spread of 
such a government into France and England, could secure a 
lasting peace based on justice and righteousness. 

This mistaken doctrine, however honest in the leaders, was 
suited for use by selfishness, ignorance, and passion. Accord- 

' See C. Altschial's German Militarism and Its German Critics, War Infor- 
mation Series, No. 13. 

074 



THE GERMAN REPUBLIC 675 

ingly in several large German cities, especially in Berlin, "Sol- 
diers and Workingmen's Councils " seized the government in 
the interest of working-class rule. These bodies were attacked 
promptly by the regular troops, which for the most part re- 
mained true to the Provisional Government. Thousands fell in 
bloody street fights, marked by the use of poison gas, machine 
guns, and liquid fire. The superior equipment of the govern- 
ment forces in all such respects triumphed ; and Liebknecht 
and Rosa Luxemburg were taken prisoners — and brutally 
murdered by their guards.^ 

Then in January, 1919, Germany held an election for a German 
National Assembly. By a new franchise law promulgated by ^***°°^! 
the Provisional Government, all men and women over 19 years of 1919 
of age had been given the vote, and an excellent system of 
"proportional representation" secured due weight to minority 
parties. The result was a victory for a union of Moderate 
Socialists ("Majority Socialists") and "German Democrats" 
(the old Liberals). 

To avoid revolutionary mobs, the Assembly met at Weimar 
instead of at Berlin. By an overwhelming vote, it chose Ebert 
(once a saddler) president of the German Republic (February 
11), organized under a coalition cabinet led by Philip Scheide- 
mann, and framed a new constitution while waiting for peace 
terms from the Allies. 

The new Republic was a federation of the old states. Each 
state had already put off its monarchic government. Prussia, 
for instance, had also abolished its Upper House and had 
adopted universal suffrage (including women) for the election 
of its One-House legislature. But through the winter and 
spring, these republican governments were constantly threatened 
with anarchy. Factories could not open for lack of cotton, 
or rubber, or iron, or capital, or markets in which to sell 
goods. Germany's ships had been taken by the Allies, to 

1 Some of the assassins were obliged to go through the form of a trial. 
Two were sentenced to two years' imprisonment; but the next day one of 
these "escaped," — a fitting conclusion to the farce of the trial. 



676 THE WAR AND THE NEW AGE 

help replace those her submarines had sunk, and the Allied 
blockade had been lifted only far enough to permit the intro- 
duction of some foods, — not enough to restore any real trade 
with the world nor even to remove the pressure of hunger. 
The Bava- Under these conditions, revolutions in some of the states put 
lution control for a time into the hands of the working classes. In the 

end, these revolutionary governments were all crushed by a 
union against them of all other parts of society, and their fall 
was followed too often by cruel and long-continued massacre of 
the more active and intelligent of the working class. These 
brutal and treacherous "White Terrors" have cast upon the 
middle-class Republicans of Germany a stain almost as black 
as marked the French Republic in 1871 (p. 489). 

For a few weeks even aristocratic Bavaria had a pro- 
letarian government, in which the leading ministers had 
been, one a blacksmith's apprentice, one a tailor, another a 
herd boy, while the president, Kurt Eisner, a gallant op- 
ponent of the war, had been until shortly before only a 
struggling Socialist newspaper man. Eisner was soon mur- 
■ dered by an aristocratic officer, and the government was 
overthrown by a combination of military violence and 
treachery. 

Revolutions Hungary had promptly become a republic under enlightened 
in Hungary middle-class control. The president, the liberal Count Karolyi, 
turned over his princely domains for common use, and pleaded 
with the Allies for terms that might prevent further revolu- 
tion. But the stupid Allied blockade, making impossible 
either work or food, put this government to such straits that 
it soon gave way, bloodlessly, to a proletarian rule under Bela 
Kun, similar to the Bolshevist rule in Russia. 

Later (August, 1919), it may best be added here, the 
Allies brought about the overthrow of Bela Kun b}^ secret 
promises of support to a more moderate Socialist and Trade- 
Union faction — and then betrayed this government of 



NEW STATES IN EUROPE 677 

their own creation. Roumania had taken advantage of 
the woes of Hungary to declare war, and to invade that 
country even after every Hungarian government had de- 
clared its full willingness to cede all Roumanian lands. 
In spite of weak paper remonstrances from the Allies at 
Paris, the Roumanian army even occupied the Hungarian 
capital, and for months it ravaged the helpless country 
industriously and systematically. Under the influence of 
these conquerors, and with the shameful connivance of 
the Allies at Paris, a restoration of the Hapsburg monarchy 
was attempted in the person of the Archduke Frederick. 
Vigorous protest at Paris from Herbert Hoover prevented 
the lasting open success of this plot ; but a reactionary 
aristocratic government was left in control. 

The other lands of the old " Central Empires " had already New States 
fallen away, but not into peace. A new and enlarged Bohemia *° Europe 
(the Czecho-Slav Republic) was practically at war, not merely 
with Germany and x\ustria, but also with the new Polish Repub- 
lic, over conflicting boundary claims ; and this new Poland, 
under the leadership of Paderewski, the famous pianist, had 
other contests with Russian Bolsheviki on one side and with 
Germany on the remaining land frontier, besides being torn by 
internal factions and busied in massacring its own Jews. And 
Poland was only one of seven new states — all in equal anarchy 
— that had split off from the old Russian Empire, — Finland, 
Esthonia, Livia, Curland, Lithuania, Ukrainia. To the south 
conditions were little better. Below old Austria, there had 
appeared a Jugo-Slav state by the long-sought union of Serbians, 
Bosnians, Croatians, and Slovenes ; but this enlarged Serbia 
and Italy were in battle array, daily in peril of war, over the 
Adriatic coast. Italy and Greece were at daggers' points 
regarding South Albania, the islands of the Aegean, and the 
shores of Asia Minor. 

Take the case of one of these new small peoples. Livia 
contained a population of Letts and of German aristocrats. 



G78 



THE NEW AGE 



At the armistice, the AlHes left a German army in the 
country, to defend it from anticipated Bolshevist attack. 
A monarchic Russian faction raised another army of 
Germans and maintained it there in hopes of invading 
Russia and restoring Tsarism. And the German aristocrats 




Central Europe in 1919. 



of the country, who had been driven from power and from 
their estates when Livia became a free republic, formed 
a third army of 7000 Junkers. This last force waged open 
civil war upon the republic, and was secretly supported by 
the two other German forces, who, pretending to be allies 
of the government against Russia, proved really to be 



THE PEACE CONGRESS OF 191<) 679 

invaders. Not till the end of a bloody year of war (Decem- 
ber, 1919), did the Letts really secure their freedom by 
driving these three enemies from their soil. 

No one of these many countries felt any trust in the honor of 
any other. Each believed that every one would hold what it 
could lay hands on, and so sought to lay its own hands on as 
much as possible before the day of settlement. The Peace 
Congress had its work cut out for it. 

That famous gathering contained the leading statesmen of The Peace 
the world. The United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, °°8ress 
and Japan each sent five delegates. England's colonies, too, 
sent delegates, — two each from Canada, Australia, South 
Africa, and India, and one from New Zealand. Eighteen other 
governments, which had taken part in the war upon the sicje of 
the Allies, were allowed from one to three delegates each. Each 
delegation voted as a unit. Countries that had been neutral 
were also invited to send representatives to be called in when- 
ever matters arose that specially concerned them. The four 
"enemy countries" and Hussia were allowed no part. A strik- 
ing feature of the gathering was the great number of expert 
assistants accompanying their representatives. The United 
States delegation alone was aided by more than a hundred 
prominent men, most of them eminent authorities on the his- 
tory or geography or economic resources of European lands. 

President Wilson himself headed the American delegation, — Woodrow 
in spite of vehement opposition to his leaving his own country pg^^^ 
for so long a time. In like manner, Lloyd George and Orlando, 
the English and Italian premiers, represented their lands ; and 
Clemenceau, head of the French delegation, was naturally 
chosen president of the Assembly. These men made up "the 
Big Four." Part of the time this inner circle became the " Big 
Five" by the inclusion of the Japanese representative. 

From the first it was plain that even within the Big Four 
there were critical differences. . Mr. Wilson had promised the 
world, Germany included, "a permanent peace based on un- 



680 



THE NEW AGE 



Lloyd 
George 
and Cle- 
menceau 



selfish, unbiased justice," and " a new international order based 
upon broad universal principles of right." To such ends he in- 
sisted, (1) that the first step must be the organization of a 
League of Nations, a World federation ; and (2) that all 
negotiations should be public — " open covenants, openly ar- 
rived at." 

At times, Lloyd George had seemed heartily to adopt this 
program ; but he was seriously hampered liy the fact that 




The " Big Four " — Lloyd George — Orlando — Clemenceau — Wilson. 
(Radical criticism sometimes alludes to the four as " the four old men 
of Paris.") 



in the campaign for parliamentary elections, in December, he 
had won by appeals to the worst war passions of the English 
people. The other leaders never had any real faith in the 
Wilson program. In Clemenceau's words, they looked upon 
President Wilson as a benevolent dreamer of LTtopias, and they 
preferred to rest all rearrangements upon the old European 
methods of rival alliances to maintain a balance of power — a 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 681 

plan which had been tried, only to prove through bloody cen- 
turies a seed bed of war. 

Moreo\'er France was dissatisfied and panicky. Germany, Govern- 

prostrate for the moment, still bordered upon her, with a popu- ^^^\^ *^^ 
, . . . peoples in 

lation and resources greater than her own. So it. is easy to Europe 

understand that many French statesmen should have wished 

above all things to deal with Germany by German methods 

— to make her helpless bj' dismembering her and by plundering 
her through indemnities, and to build up the new Poland and 
Bohemia by giving them enough German territory so that they 
might always be fearful of Germany and therefore hostile to her. 
Such states on the east, with France on the west, could then 
hold Germany in a vise between them — especially if the pro- 
posed League of Nations could be made a cover for a guarantee 
of this arrangemfent by America and England. 

Such a program meant the perpetuation of the old European 
system of alliances, armed camps, and, sooner or later, of war. 
But by the war-weary peoples, if not by the governments of 
Europe, the Wilson program of a just peace and a world league 
was at first hailed with joy. Mr. Wilson had arrived in Europe 
several weeks before the opening of the Congress, for conferences 
with European statesmen ; and everywhere in his journey — in 
England, France, Italy — he was welcomed by the working 
classes with remarkable demonstrations of respect and affec- 
tion, as " the president of all of us," as the Italians put it, — as 
the apostle of world peace and of human brotherhood. For 
a time it looked possible for him, at a crisis, to override the hostile 
attitude of the governments by appealing over their heads to 
the people themselves : and indeed in a great speech at Milan 

— just after some slurring attacks upon him by French states- 
men — he hinted pointedly at such a possible program. 

But as months passed in wearisome negotiations, this popular Mr. Wilson 
fervor wasted away, and in each nation bitter animosities began ^^^^^'J® 
to show toward neighboring and allied peoples. Moreover at home 
Mr. Wilson had been fatally weakened in Europe by events at 
home. Late in the campaign for the new CongressionaL elec- 



082 



THE NEW AGE 



Secret 
negotiations 



Agreement 
for a 

League of 
Nations 



tions in the preceding November, he had made a special and 
ill-judged appeal to the country for indorsement of his policies 
by a Democratic victory. But the elections instead gave both 
Houses to the Republicans ; and the jubilant victors, charging 
vengefully that the President had set an example of political 
partisanship, entered upon a bitter course of criticism and 
obstruction. Mr. Wilson's European opponents made the most 
of this — if indeed they did not, as many thought, have a 
positive part in starting it. 

Mr. Wilson's first defeat at Paris was in the matter of secret 
negotiation. To save time, it was necessary no doubt for the 
Peace Congress to do most of its work in small committees. 
But it would have been possible to lessen bargaining and in- 
trigue by having such meetings open to representatives of the 
press, or by publishing stenographic reports of each meeting. 
Mr. Wilson, however, allowed the Old World diplomats — with 
their tradition of backstair intrigue — to outgeneral him into 
consenting to only one public and general meeting each week. 
The result was that, from the first, the real work was done by 
the inner circle of four or five in secret conclave (with the ad- 
dition of several advisory secret committees on special matters) ; 
and instead of even the promised open meeting once a week 
there were during the entire five months to the signing of the 
Peace with Germany (January 18-June 28) only six such meet- 
ings — and these not for discussion but merely to ratify conclu- 
sions arrived at by the Big Four. 

The next point Mr. Wilson won. It was agreed that the 
first business of the Congress should be to provide a League 
of Nations. With such a league to guarantee peace, to secure 
disarmament, and to punish any bully or robber state, it was 
hoped that France and Italy might trust to a just and merciful 
peace, instead of insisting' upon a peace of vengeance and booty. 
Many voices, in France and in the United States Senate, had 
been raised in protest, urging that a league should come only 
after a treaty of peace. vSome of these objectors were honest : 
some used the objection as a means to defeat any real league. 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 683 

But Mr. Wilson argued that the League would expedite, not 
hinder, the peace treaty, since it was a necessary prelude to 
any right sort of peace ; and this view prevailed. 

While a committee of fourteen nations, headed by Mr. Spoils or 
Wilson, was preparing the covenant, or constitution, of the J"^***^® 
league, dark rumors crept out regarding the plans of European 
statesmen for spoils. France talked of the necessity that she 
acquire all German territory west of the Rhine, "her natural 
frontier," so that in future wars that great river might serve 
as a protective ditch. Marshal Foch supported this plea for 
military reasons. This of course would have transferred several 
millions of unwilling Germans to French rule. But Mr. Wilson, 
as recognized spokesman for the Allies at the Armistice and in 
earlier negotiations with Germany, had repeatedly renoimced 
the principle of forcible annexations either to punish a foe or 
to secure "strategic frontiers" — or for any purpose except to 
satisfy the just claims of oppressed nationalities. To grant 
this French claim would have been the grossest of bad faith — 
as well as one more continuation of the discredited policy of 
the old Congress of Vienna in 1814 that had seeded Europe for a 
century of war. 

Italy, too, demanded, and received, not only the Italian popu- 
lations of the Trentino (p. 527) formerly held by Austria, but 
also a needless " strategic frontier " against now helpless Austria, 
involving the annexation of a purely German district in the 
Brenner Pass of the Alps with a quarter of a million inhabit- 
ants. ^ Italy also advanced new claims on the Adriatic at the 
expense of the new South Slav state. And it became plain that 
the imperfectly known "secret treaties," under which Italy and 
Japan had entered the war, had provided for a far-reaching 
division of spoils, not only at the expense of Germany but also 
to the danger of future wars. Enough news leaked out from the 
secret conclaves to make it certain that President Wilson 

' If this region was to be made safe against possible military use by 
Austria — or Italy — it might have been given to Switzerland, with the 
vote of its people. 



684 



THE NEW AGE 



England 
and the 
German 
Colonies 



The Cov- 
enant of the 
League of 
Nations 



denounced these projects, and declared he would have no part 
in a "Congress for booty." At one time, indeed, when the 
Italian delegates insisted strenuously upon Croatian Fiume 
(the natural door of the South Slavs to the Adriatic), he cabled 
to America for his ship — a plain threat that he would leave 
Paris rather than assent — and this particular act of plunder 
was avoided, for a time,^ even though Orlando did for a while 
leave the Congress in protest. Unhappily in other cases Mr. 
Wilson was not always so resolute. Victory over Fiume was 
followed by defeat over Shantung (p. 688), and the French 
demand for the Rhine became a trading pretext for granting 
her the Saar Valley (pp. 686-687). 

England seemed to hold the key to the situation. The secret 
treaties had assumed that she would retain the great bulk of 
the German colonies. For this there would have been much 
excuse. She had proved her eminent fitness for control of 
tropical colonies ; and some of the conquered districts — if a 
state of war was to be looked upon as probable in the future 
— were essential to the safety of her other dominions. In- 
deed the South African and Australian representatives at 
Paris faced political death if they returned home without Ger- 
man Southwest Africa and German New Guinea in their pockets. 
But unless England renounced her conquests for the general 
good, there was no escape from an old-fashioned peace of plun- 
der : if she did renounce them, there seemed good hope that 
England and the United States together might persuade the 
other Allies to yield their selfish and injurious claims under the 
secret treaties. And Lloyd George did for a time restore the 
fainting hopes of the world by seeming to promise this splendid 
renunciation — though the promise was accompanied by the 
suggestion of mandatories, responsible to the coming League 
of Nations. 

In March, while other negotiations dragged along, the com- 
mittee on the League of Nations made its report, and the Con- 
gress enthusiastically adopted the proposed constitution. The 

' Special report — the Fiume incident and the final settlement. 



WOODROW WILSON'S FAILURE 685 

chief opposition to the proposal appeared in the United 
States Senate, where certain Repubhcans tried to make it a 
party question. This was rendered difficult, happily, by the 
splendid work of ex-President Taft, head of the American 
League to Enforce Peace, who, with a group of leading Re- 
publicans, toured the United States to secure support for the 
covenant. The opposition was sufficient, however, so that 
after a few weeks the Peace Congress revised the document 
in a few details. 

The revised covenant was clear and brief. The union is very 
loose, and its managing bodies are not really a government. 
The forty-five "charter members" may include all organized 
governments except Russia, the four "enemy countries," Costa 
Rica, San Domingo, and Mexico ; and there is a way provided 
for admitting these in time. Amendments require the unani- 
mous consent of the five big states with a majority of all states ; 
and the unanimous consent of all nations in the League is de- 
manded for any other action of consequence, except that no 
party to a dispute has a voice in its settlement,^. Among the 
most valuable provisions of the "Covenant" are the prohibition 
of all secret treaties in future, and the clauses providing for 
disarmament, for regulation of the manufacture of munitions 
of war, for compulsory arbitration, and for delay in recourse to 
war even if an arbitration is unsatisfactory. A reservation of 
the Monroe Doctrine, inserted in the second draft as a sop to 
American opposition, suggests, by its unfortunate phrasing, a 
continuation of the pernicious doctrine of "spheres of influence," 
and satisfies neither advocates nor opponents of the League. 
Much debated, too, is Article X, which guarantees to each state 
its territorial integrity against external attack. Mr. Wilson 
wrote the original of this Article, — but in a very different form, 
suggesting especially the desirability of future peaceful correc- 
tion of territorial boundaries by the League of Nations. In the 
present form, the Article may b# a serious barrier to needed 
readjustments. Its proposed guarantee of existing frontiers 
has certainly encouraged the various European states each to 



086 



TIT?] NEW AGE 



The Ger- 
man treaty 



The Saar 
VaUey 



grab all it could, in the hope of being protected later by the 
League in ill-gotten gains. 

And, meanwhile, to secure a League, at all, Mr. Wilson had 
"traded" many of his principles in the making of the peace 
treaties. June 28, the treaty of peace with Germany was signed 
by the helpless German delegates, who had been summoned 
to Paris for the purpose. The treaty makes a good-sized book. 




Courtesy of Underwood and Underwood. 

C'lemenceau (Representing the Peace Congress) Delivering to the 
German Delegates the Terms of Peace, at Versailles, May 7, 1919, 
at the Trianon Hotel. The German delegates are sitting, directly op- 
posite Clemenceau, on the left side of the room. Cf. p. 423. 

Only a few points can be stated here. A typical one relates 
to the Saar Valley, a small strip of German territory just east 
of Alsace. 

Germany is to cede the rich coal mines of this region to France, 
in rightful reparation of her wanton destruction of French coal 
mines. France insisted long upon political sovereignty over the 
territory and people, along with this property. This claim was 
not directly granted ; but a "compromise " places the valley for 
fifteen years under an International Commission. At the end 
of that time the inhabitants are to vote whether they will 



THE PEACE TREATIES 



687 



return to Germany or join France. If they decide for their "Veiled an 
own country, Germany must at once buy up France's claim to '^^^^ '°°" 
the coal mines. This may be difficult for her to do; but if 
she fails to do it, the territory passes at once and permanently 
to France. And French capital, which is managing the mines, 
is already importing thousands of Polish miners to work them. 
It will be easy to "colonize" these workers and to use their 
votes for French purposes. 

This " veiled annexation " of half a million Germans to a 
foreign power, against their will, is in sharp defiance of the prin- 
ciple of "self-determination," — and it was wholly unnecessary. 
France ought to have the coal ; but title to that could have been 
guaranteed safely, under the League of Nations, without this 
transfer of political allegiance. And the Saar Valley arrange- 
ment is merely one of several like or worse arrangements. The 
new Poland gets not merely the Polish territory long held by 
Prussia, to which she is entitled, but also large strips of German 
territory, like Upper Silesia (with its two million people), which 
she wants solely because of its mines. Moreover, in order to give Silesia 
Poland easy access to the sea, by the route of the Vistula, Ger- ^ . 
man Dantzig is made a "free" city, against its will, with added 
roundabout arrangements that leave it really subject to Poland. 
Besides these displeasing provisions, Germany very properly not 
only returns Alsace-Lorraine ^ to France and (with a favorable 
vote of the inhabitants) Danish Sleswig to Denmark, but also 
cedes to Belgium three small pieces of territory populated mainly 
by people of Belgian blood. In addition to all this, if the in- 
habitants so vote, she is to cede to Poland considerable territory 
east of the Vistula. In all, Germany loses outright 35,000 
square miles, with a probable loss (by plebiscites) of nearly 
20,000 more — in all, a territory about the extent of Penn- 
sylvania, and more than a fifth of the old Germany. Even 
this is not enough to satisfy the French government. That 

'French military authorities are already exercising (1919) over German 
inhabitants in Alsace-Lorraine a tyranny as bad or worse than Germany 
used toward French inhabitants there after 1871. 



688 



THE NEW AGE 



The old 
colonies 
of Germany 



The 

Shantung 

matter 



government has failed to get recognition for its claim to the 
Rhine districts of Germany ; but attempts, which may yet 
succeed, have been fomented by French agents to induce this 
part of Germany to secede and form a separate state. 

Besides all this, Germany has lost her vast colonial empire. 
This is well. But, instead of being placed under the guardian- 
ship of the League of Nations until they can walk alone, the 
former German colonies are turned over as plunder to the Allies. 
Those in the Pacific have gone part to England, part to Japan, 
according to the terms of a secret treaty of 1914 between those 
countries. True, England and Japan are "mandatories" of 
the League of Nations ; but that arrangement is left so vague 
and loose that it looks like little more than a screen for the 
division of spoils — and Japan surely has shown herself (in 
Korea) as unfit to rule subject-peoples as ever Germany was. 
And German Africa has been divided between France, Belgium, 
and England with hardly a pretext of even the mandatory screen. 

In this connection Americans are especially chagrined 
that Japan succeeds also to all Germany's indefinite 
"rights" in the Shantung Peninsula, against the futile 
protest of China. True, Japan has promised vaguely that 
her political occupation shall be "temporary"; but that 
word has been used too often as a prelude to permanent 
grabs of territory. To allow the one remaining despotic 
and military power in the world so to seize the door to 
China is not merely to betray a faithful ally, but also 
to renounce a plain and wise American policy in the 
Orient. Shantung has a population of 40 millions, it is the 
seat of Chinese civilization, the home of the philosopher 
and moral teacher, Confucius. It is China's Holy Land for 
the past and her chief hope for modern industrialism. 

Very objectionable, too, are the economic provisions of the 
German treaty. Germany is to pay fixed reparations amount- 
ing to about 30 billions of dollars during the fifteen years, 1920- 
1934. This is severe, but on the whole it is just. However, 



THE PEACE TREATIES 689 

Germany is to pay further indefinite amounts, to be determined ^ 

in future by a commission of her conquerors. This provision, - 

along with accompanying rules regarding German taxation, i 

leaves Germany's head in a noose which English or French 
commercial jealousy may tighten at will. With biting sarcasm, ^ 

a radical critic represents a French statesman saying, — " Well, ' 

we fought a war to end war, and now we have made a Peace \ 

to end peace." 

The American delegation opposed practically all these vicious " Liberal 
provisions ; but Mr. Wilson proved utterly unable to cope with "^^^^^ 
the European diplomats. He had believed with supreme con- treaty 
fidence that he could bring them to his terms : in fact he proved 
a plaything in their hands. Not a vestige of the Fourteen 
Points survives in the Treaty — neither their details nor their 
spirit. And yet, unwilling to confess defeat, Mr Wilson claimed 
to be satisfied. But some of the experts attached to the Ameri- 
can Commission were so disappointed that they resigned their 
positions in protest ; and General Smuts, the hero of South 
Africa, and one of the noblest of the world's statesmen, when 
signing for his country, declared in a formal statement that he 
signed only because of the absolute necessity of immediate 
peace for Europe and because he hoped that the most objec- 
tionable provisions might be modified in future by the League 
of Nations. Organized labor in England, France, and Italy 
made earnest protests also against the violations of the principle 
of self-determination. China naturally refused to sign. 

Such opposition to the Treaty had nothing to do with sym- 
pathy for Germany. A stern peace was to be expected ; and, 
in the conflict of so many claims, some unsatisfactory results 
were sure to appear. But progressive men, the world over, 
believe that the treaty is dishonorable to the Allies — con- 
tradicting solemn pledges as it does — and bad for the world 
at large. It must breed wars. It breaks faith not alone with 
the beaten foe but also with the hundreds of thousands of 
splendid youth who gave their lives, in torment and suffering. 



690 



THE NEW AGE 



The treaty 
with Austria 



The treaty 
with Bul- 
garia 



Spoils in 
Asia 



to win the "war for democracy," "a war that should end war" 
and secure "peace and safety for all nations." Wrote one of 
these young heroes in Flanders just before his death in battle 
- — as if in sad prophecy : 

"If ye break faith with us who die, 
We shall not sleep, though i)oppies blow in Flanders fields." 

Late in July, after, the return of President Wilson to America, 
the treaty with Austria was completed at Paris. The disposi- 
tion of most of the Empire has been described (pp. 676-677). 
Austria herself is left a petty state of 7,000,000 people, grouped 
around Vienna, shut off from the sea, with no excuse for a 
separate political existence and with little chance for indus- 
trial existence. Markets, materials, mines, are all gone. The 
Austrians very naturally wish incorporation with Germany. 
Germany also desires it ; but at French insistence, the Peace 
Congress has forbidden this application of the principle of 
"self-determination." In economic matters this treaty has the 
same traits as does the treaty with Germany. 

In December came the treaty with Bulgaria. It leaves the 
Balkans as before a seed plot for European wars. No attention 
is paid to lines of nationality, as promised in the Fourteen 
Points. Greece and Serbia each extend their holdings on the 
north Aegean coast, and Bulgaria is practically shut off from 
the sea except by the course of the Danube. As in other lands, 
too, punishment falls on the wrong party. When Tsar Ferdi- 
nand of Bulgaria forced his country into the war on Germany's 
side, one peasant leader in the legislature resisted to the last, 
even warning Ferdinand that such action would cost him his 
crown. For this brave service, the " unpatriotic" Stambulowski 
was thrown into prison. The revolution of 1918 made good his 
prophecy. Ferdinand was driven into exile ; and Stambulowski, 
the friend of the Allies, now head of the new Bulgarian re- 
public, receives the stern terms that Ferdinand earned. 

At this writing (December, 1919) the treaty with Turkey is 
not complete. It is plain, however, that France has seized 



THE PEACE TREATIES 691 

Syria for herself, despite the vehement protest of the Syrian 
people, and that England has taken Mesopotamia and the 
Euphrates district. In the selfish desire to grab such prizes, 
these Allies seem careless whether or not Turkey retains 
sovereignty over the ancient city of Constantinople. As a 
"by-product" of these arrangements, too, English imperialistic 
capital has at last virtually seized Persia, persuading the young 
Shah to betray his country. The whole arrangement in the 
East is a frank surrender to extreme and arrogant imperialism, 
French and English. 



n 



The United States is not yet a party either to the Peace or The United 
the League. Attempts to amend the League of Nations cove- ^'**®^ 
nant in the United States Senate failed ; but reservations were 
added to it to preserve freedom of action for the United States 
in quarrels that may arise out of the European rivalries. The 
President refused to accept these reservations, and final action 
is yet to be taken (December, 1919). 

One more miserable mess must be recorded — concerning Bolshevist 
Russia. The Bolshevists are trying a new principle of citizen- '^"^^'* 
ship. An able-bodied man or woman who does no useful work 
with hand or brain they look upon as a social parasite. Such 
people they exclude from voting. Political citizenship is based 
upon service to society. So far, the Bolshevist idea, in theory 
at least, may command some sympathy, — though we may not 
always agree with the Bolshevist judgment as to what social 
service is. (Lawyers, bankers, and all who live upon invested 
capital, are excluded by them from the list of useful workers; 
but actors, teachers, physicians, engineers, and industrial man- 
agers are included, along with all hand workers.) Hbwever that 
be, the world certainly would never have dreamed of interfering, 
by force, merely to correct such a limitation of the franchise in 
a land where the same world for a thousand years has tolerated 
the despotic rule of a Tsar. 

But, for the first time in the world on a national scale, the 



692 THE NEW AGE 

Bolshevists also be(/(m to jmt into operation an extreme kind of 
Socialism. If the Russian people really wish to try even this 
experiment, they undoubtedly have the right to do so. But 
the plan was put in operation, not by the deliberate will of the 
people : it was done by a " dictatorship of the proletariat." The 
real control lay — and still lies (December, 1919) — in the 
small but perfectly organized class of town workers. The much 
more numerous but less organized peasantry, fairly content with 
the ownership of their new lands (p. 645), acquiesced passively 
and perhaps ignorantly in the Bolshevist rule. The small capi- 
talist class, and those "intellectuals" who oppose Socialism, 
were overruled and silenced. Still these non-Socialist forces 
might have got together before this time, and overthrown or 
modified Bolshevism, if the Allies, by a cruel, colossal, and 
despotic blunder, had not identified Bolshevism with patriotism 
for all Russians who lo"\'e their country. 

Like the French "emigrant" nobles of 1792, Russian cour- 
tiers and nobles in 1917, fleeing from the Revolution, levied 
war against the new government of their country from without 
or in the border provinces — with foreign aid. Kolchak for a 
time held most of Siberia ; Denekin threatened invasion from 
the Ukraine ; "Butcher" Mannerheim, commander of the Finn- 
ish "White Guards," after murdering 12,000 Finnish Socialists 
in cold blood, without trial, planned to attack Petrograd from 
the west. All these leaders claimed at first to desire some con- 
stitutional government for Russia ; but more and more clearly 
their acts proved beyond doubt that they really plotted the 
restoration of despotism ; and the unspeakable atrocities of the 
various "White Terrors" that followed their early temporary 
successes at least equaled the excesses charged to the Bolshe- 
vists in their hour of bloody Revolution. It must be added 
that hostile Roumania, Poland, and Japan, and small reac- 
tionary armies in the Baltic provinces (as in Livia ; p. 678) made 
the cordon complete — except for the Archangel port on the 
north; and that one opening to the world was closed by an 
army of 12,000 English, French, and Americans. 



THE PEACE TREATIES 693 

These- troops were sent to Archangel during the last of 
the war against Germany, on the ground that their pres- 
ence was necessary to protect military stores there from 
German seizure. Soon, troops who had enlisted to fight 
the Kaiser were used — at the behest of French and Eng- 
lish rulers — as an invading army against the working- 
man's government of Russia. They were told that the 
Russian people, freed, and encouraged by their presence, 
would rally to overthrow Bolshevist tyranny. But the 
Russians did not rally — or rather they did rally to the 
Bolshevists. The few who at first fought along with the 
Allies deserted rapidly to their countrymen. The service 
was hateful to multitudes of the English and American 
soldiers. And military necessity compelled the complete 
withdrawal of these troops from Russian soil before the 
end of 1919. The English fleet, however, continues the 
blockade (December, 1919). 

One curious feature of the business is that democratic 
America found itself at war with Russia — and has con- 
tinued at war for nearly two years — without action by 
Congress, and that requests even from United States 
senators like Hiram Johnson for information as to the rea- 
sons for President Wilson's action in sending American 
soldiers against Russia have received no reply from the 
administration. 

The Allies at Paris, dominated by fear and hatred of Bolshe- 
vism, supported zealously all these invasions of Russia. No 
doubt they believe that only by blockade, and by final conquest, 
can Bolshevism be kept from spreading to their own lands. 
They think it needful to combat the Bolshevist theory, not by 
reason but by violence ; and they do not think it safe to let it 
work out its own failure. 

Kolchak and Denekin, supplied lavishly by the Allies and by 
the American government with arms, money, and other military 
stores, won some success during the early months while the 



694 THE NEW AGE 

Bolshevists were busied in putting their house in order after 
the disorder of successive revohitions. But the invading armies 
continued to be merely selfish "emigrants" or paid merce- 
naries ; the Russian peasants and townsfolk alike held aloof ; and 
as soon as the Bolshevik government showed energy, these 
elements began to support it against foreign intervention. 
Russian "intellectuals," who had been contending against Bol- 
shevism, even some who had suffered bitterly from that rule, 
now offered their services eagerly to the Russian government; 
and Kerensky himself, fugitive as he was in Paris, wrote in 
November of 1919 that foreign invasion had united all patri- 
otic Russians in support of the Bolshevist government, and that 
the only hope for Russia lay in the prompt recognition of that 
government by the world. 

For, although the Allies have not hurt Bolshevism, their block- 
ade has probably slain more Russians by starvation than the 
Allied armies slew Germans during the war. And these victims 
have been largely undernourished mothers and young children, 
most commonly from just those classes that the Allies profess to 
desire to "free." Of course, the blockade has also kept Russian 
factories from getting cotton or rubber or other raw material 
not produced in their own land, and so has prevented a revival 
of Russian industrial life. In spite of all this, the Bolshevist 
armies have at this writing wrested peace from the Baltic 
states, and driven back in rout their invaders on all frontiers. 

For Further Reading. — Arthur Ransom, Russia in 1919. (A 
statement of personal observation by a trained, fair-minded English- 
man, without any sympathy for Bolshevist theory.) William Bullitt, 
The Bullitt Mission to Russia. (A story of an attempt to bring about 
peace by an attache of the American Peace Delegation at Paris ; with 
valuable documents.) Raymond Robins' Colonel Robins' Story. 
(Edited by WiUiam Hard. Raymond Robins was the head of the 
American Red Cross in Russia during the Revolution and after.) 



CHAPTER LIII 



HEALING FORCES 



The war was a world war. Eight out of every nine men on The cost of 
the globe belonged to the warring nations. It cost nine million ^^^ ""^^ 
lives and 200 billion dollars. A vast portion of all the wealth 
stored up laboriously through centuries is consumed, and over 
wide areas all the machinery for producing wealth is gone. 
The moral losses are beyond all computation — sickening to 
the imagination. 

The United States had relatively small sacrifices to make. 
We entered late, and our borders were remote from the struggle. 
Still, eighty thousand American boys lie in French soil, and 
thrice as many were horribly maimed. As to money, aside 
from the immense sums raised by war taxes, our war debt is 
more than twenty-five billions, besides some nine billions more 
that our government borrowed from our people to loan to Eng- 
land, France, Belgium, and Italy. On these loans the Allied The cost 
governments will perhaps pay the interest,^ and possibly some- ^^^}\^° ^® 
time they will be able to repay the principal ; but on the remain- 
ing twenty-five billions the interest alone will each year exceed 
the total yearly expenditure of our government before the war. 
Our debt is ten times that with which we came out of our Civil 
War, and it equals all the receipts of our government from George 
Washington's first presidency to our entrance into the war : With- 
out paying a cent of the principal, we will have to tax our- 
selves each year three times as much as ever before for our 
national government. 

1 So far (December, 1919) no interest payment has been made by any 
foreign country on this debt ; and we begin to hear voices to the effect that 
these loans should be regarded as part of America's payments for the war. 

695 



696 THE NEW AGE 

But we must also pay the principal. If we pay it in one 
generation (as probably we shall), that will mean one billion 
more of taxes a year. As we pay the principal, the interest 
will lessen ; but, taking into account the increased cost of living 
for the government, it is safe to say that for the next twenty-five 
years we must raise three billion dollars a year, — or three 
fourths as much as in the war years themselves. We have 
boasted that in this country the war has been paid for by the 
wealthy classes, not by the poor. But so far (1919) we have 
hardly begun to pay that cost : if our boast is to be made good, 
we must raise more than two thirds of our taxes during the 
next years by income and luxury taxes. 
Conditions In Europe the burden is terrifying. Words cannot express 

in Europe ^j^^ ^^j^^ there ; and the huge totals of indebtedness in France, 
England, and Germany have little meaning to us. Factories 
are gone ; shipping is sunk ; raw materials for manufactures 
are not available ; it seems almost impossible to start the wheels 
of industry again. Poverty and profound discouragement per- 
meate the masses of the people. England has suffered less than 
the continent ; but England's debt is enormous. Without pay- 
ing a penny of it, merely to keep up the interest and her old 
annual expenditure, she must raise more than fiir billions of 
dollars a year in taxes. With her smaller population, that 
means that each family must pay some four times as much as 
an American family. 

Some last- Still there is another side. The world is freed, we trust, 

mg gains from the perpetual cost of vast navies and crushing military 
establishments ; and it has learned fruitful lessons. In the 
preceding chapters we surveyed some of the forces that made 
for war efficiency. Many of these, and others apart from these, 
make also for healing and reconstruction in peace. W^e can 
survey them best as they are seen in our own country. 

The whole American people learned that when the rich 
family saved its fragments for a later meal, instead of casting 
them to the garbage can, some starving child in Europe had 



HEALING FORCES 697 

bread. We learned to do our daily work not so much for 
private gain as for the general good. We learned that every 
man who did not do work useful to society was a parasite, 
dangerous to society, whether he were a tramp or a millionaire. 
We learned that by cooperation, in place of wasteful compe- 
tition, we could enormously increase the productiveness of 
our labor and machinery, and that by wise direction we could 
find useful work for every worker. Lessons like these, after 
growing into our life for two years of war, must leave a mighty 
effect upon our life in peace. 

And many other lessons of the war will count for peace. Lessons in 

The medical examination of our drafted men revealed tens of human con- 
servation 
thousands of cases of inefficiency and of wasted lives due to 

defective eyes or teeth or feet. Our doctors, dentists, and 
surgeon.s cured most of these cases, and augmented tremen- 
dously our fighting power. Surely we will now find a way to 
use the same healing forces to augment our power for peaceful 
industry and to remove needless unhappiness. Indeed our 
schools in their new "health crusade" have already begun to 
remake our nation on a sounder basis of body. 

Very fruitful of good was the work of our National Board The Voca- 
of Vocational Education. Many soldiers, by the loss of arms *'°"*' Board 
or legs or eyes, were disabled from ever taking up again the 
only work they had ever known. The Vocational Board of 
skilled experts educated and trained these disabled men, at 
government expense, ^or some new occupation for which they 
showed interest and fitness, making them useful and happy 
members of society instead of leaving them dependents and 
beggars. Many a real genius was thus enabled to do some 
work he had always longed to do but which he had never be- 
fore been able to get into. The results within even a few months 
were so incredibly beneficent that bills were introduced into 
both Houses of Congress in the winter of 1919 to preserve this 
Vocational organization for peace, that it might at public 
expense do the same invaluable and merciful work for the 
hundreds of thousands of our people who every year are maimed 



698 



THE NEW AGE 



New inter- 
est in child 
welfare 



Housing 
movements 



The War 

Labor 

Board 



in accidents and in industry. The press of Congressional work 
at the end of the session prevented these bills from becoming 
law, but the attempt will be renewed. 

Still other features of this "human conservation" have 
promise for the future. In Europe there had been an alarming 
loss of man power due to slaughter in battle. Along with this 
was a falling off in the birth rate. These conditions threatened 
depopulation. Accordingly European governments were forced 
to legislate, more than ever before, for child welfare, — espe- 
cially for the saving of the lives and health of babies and mothers, 
with the use of public funds. Even in the stress of war, laws 
provided for reasonable rest for working mothers before and 
after the birth of a child, without loss of wages. Such civilized 
legislation has long been called for by enlightened opinion, and 
now it is sure to become universal. It is already found in some 
degree in all large countries except the United States. 

Very early, certain leaders sensed a danger that the tense 
passion of war might blind us unduly to the rights of the work- 
ing classes. In fighting to make the world safe for democracy 
it was supremely necessary to keep it safe for labor. For one 
illustration, the vast army of new workers in the shipyards 
and munition factories found no houses fit for their families, 
and were threatened with slum conditions of disease and squalor, 
besides paying exorbitant rates to greedy landlords. Accord- 
ingly a government's Housing Commission expended millions of 
dollars in building model homes for siich workers. This has 
given an impulse, not to be wholly lost, to an old movement for 
better housing by the nation for the workers. 

More difficult to meet was another problem. Labor had to 
give up its usual weapon of strikes in disputes with employers. 
The public good demanded this. But labor could not be left 
to the mercy of employers. And so in America the Congress 
created a War Labor Board. This proved one of the most 
remarkable parts of the war government, exercising for two 
years an influence upon American life second only to that of 
the Supreme Court. Wages were rising rapidly ; and the pub- 



HEALING FORCES (399 

lie, only partially informed, could not easily understand that 
wages after all failed to keep up with the rising cost of living, 
and that workingmen were in danger of losing the standards of 
living that they had won in long years of effort. 

The War Labor Board acted as a compulsory arbitration 
board between Capital and Labor in those industries which 
concerned the carrying on of the war. President Wilson ap- 
pointed ex-President Taft and Mr. Frank Walsh as joint 
chairmen, and the other members came in 'equal numbers from 
employers and labor representatives. The Board recognized 
the right of labor to organize and bargain collectively, the 
eight-hour day, a living wage, and the necessity of maintaining 
safeguards against accidents and disease, and it encouraged in 
many industries the organization of "shop connnittees" from 
the workmen to confer with the employers upon all shop condi- 
tions, — a great step toward democratizing industry. 

In its arbitrations, the Board itself had no power to enforce 
a decision, though in nearly every case both sides submitted 
at once to its award. But in some cases President Wilson 
found it needful to make the decisions compulsory by seizing 
for public use the factories whose owners refused compliance, 
or on the other side, by threatening strikers, who had refused 
an award, with military service, by withdrawing their exemp- 
tion as married men. The judicial temper of Mr. Taft and his 
legal training and open-mindedness made his services on this 
Board invaluable to the nation, and he won deep and lasting 
gratitude from organized labor for his understanding of their 
needs. 

English employers and workers during the war agreed upon xhe democ- 
the principles of the famous Whitley Report,^ providing for ratization 
the joint management of industries by Capital and Labor 
through joint councils of many grades? In the few months 
since the armistice, much has been done in England to extend 
and confirm this principle, and to provide against unemploy- 

1 Printed in full in No. 1.35 (February, 1919) of the American Association 
for International Conciliation. 



700 THE NEW AGE 

ment, to shorten the working da}-, and to guarantee a decent 
hving wage to every man or woman wilHng to work. 

In the winter of 1918 the Enghsh Labor Party adopted an 
even more comprehensive plan ^ for reconstruction after the war, 
along the same lines. This plan attracted wide and favorable 
attention, and in Minnesota a convention of Congregational 
Churches declared it "the one great religious utterance of the 
war." It is deeply significant that many larger religious bodies 
have made like declarations if somewhat less emphatic ones, 
— especially the Catholic Church through a report of its Ad- 
visory War Council, and the Methodist Church, both in Canada 
and the United States. 

In general these plans agree on the following points : 

1. Recognition that industry is designed for social service, 
not for private profiteering. 

2. A decent wage (not a bare living) for each worker and his 
family. 

3. Insurance against unemployment, with wise provision 
by the government for using idle labor in housing enterprises 
and in land reclamation, and, if necessary, for shortening the 
working day. (There is no excuse for a long working day, for 
any laborer, say many of these recent programs, as long as 
another willing but idle worker is standing by, asking for work.) 

4. Democratizing industry, so as to give to the workers a 
share in management and some ownership in their jobs. 

5. Limitation of the profits of capital to a reasonable amount. 

6. The use of the surplus (above wages and "reasonable" 
profits) for the public good, — the surplus to be taken by 
extension of income taxes and by other new taxes on mining 
royalties, water power, and so on. 

7. The need of greater production by Labor — for which 
these other changes must provide the best inducement. 

Five years ago these principles would have sounded wildly 
revolutionary : to-day society in general quietly assents to them. 

1 Printed in the same. 



HEALING FORCES 701 

Stirring times are l)efore us — times once more to try men's 
souls. Europe is still in desperate peril of social dissolution ; 
even America is not wholly free from danger that revolution 
may destroy the wholesome and progressive evolution of our 
society; and the world is not yet out of the peril of a fright- 
ful shortage of food. True, too, there is going on a dangerous 
reaction typified by the arrogant attitude of the Steel Com- 
pany in 1919 toward its. striking employees. And these reac- 
tionaries have known how to throw discredit upon all progres- 
sive movements by confusing them in the popular mind with 
Bolshevism. But men of faith believe that the outlook 
brightens, and that a new day is breaking. Just after the ex- 
hausting conflict, there was a let down, a slump in morale. 
Society was marked for a time by careless self-indulgence and 
by thoughtless indifference toward great issues. But already 
there surges up again in the masses of mankind a new wave of 
moral earnestness, promising a world — such as our leaders have 
pointed us toward through the war clouds — " safe for democ- 
racy" and "fit for heroes." 

High school youth for years will remember vividly the war 
years and their regret that they were too young to play a part. 
Now theirs is perhaps a harder part. The challenge to them is 
to complete the work for which their elder brothers died — to 
strive in peace for freedom and human brotherhood. 

" If ye break faith with us who die, 
We shall not sleep, though poppies blow in Flanders fields." 



APPENDIX 

A LIST OF BOOKS IN MODERN HISTORY FOR HIGH 
SCHOOLS 

The following titles are classified in two periods, and, under each 
period, in two groups. In the judgment of the writer, all high schools 
should have access to Group I (or an equivalent), while large schools may 
well have Group II also. Works marked with a * should be present in 
more than single copies. Prices are so uncertain at this time (1919) 
that no attempt is made to state them. 

A. TO THE P^RENCH REVOLUTION 

Group I 
Source Material. 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Bohn edition). 
Chronicles of the Crusades (Bohn Library). 

* Davis, W. S., Readings in Ancient History, II. Allyn and Bacon. 
Einhard, Charlemagne. American Book Co. 

English History from Contemporary Writers, edited by F. York-PoweU. 
A series of ten small volumes, pubUshed from 1886 to 1894 by 
Putnam, as follows : Archer, Crusade of Richard I ; Ashley, Edward 
III and His Wars; Barnard, Strongbow's Conquest of Ireland; 
Hutton, Misrule of Henry III ; Simon of Montfort; St. Thomas 
of Canterbury; Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England; Powell, 
Alfred and the Danes; Smith, Troublous Days of Richard II. 

Hill, Mabel, Liberty Documents. Longmans. 

Joinville, Memoir of St. Louis. (Various editions.) 

Lanier (editor), The Boy's Froissart. Scribner. 

Lee, Source Book of English History. Holt. 

Marco Polo, The Story of, edited by Noah Brooks. Century Co. 

Ogg, F. A., Source Book of Medieval History. Am. Book Co. 

Pennsylvania Translations and Reprints from Original Sources. 7 vols. 
University of Pennsylvania. 

* Robinson, J. H., Readings in European History. 2 vols. Ginn. 

Modem Accounts. 

* Adams, G. B., Growth of the French Nation. Macmillan. 
* Civilization during the Middle Ages. Scribner. ' 

1 



2 APPENDIX 

* Archer and Kingsford, The ('rufindes (" Nations "). Putnam. 
Balzani, Popes and Hohenstaufen. Longmans. 

Beard, Charles, An Introduction to English Historians (extracts from 
leading authorities on interesting topics). Macmillan. 

Beesly, E. S., Elizabeth (" English Statesmen "). Macmillan. 

Boyeson, H. H., Norway {" Nations ")• Putnam. 

Bradley, Wolfe. Macmillan. 

Brown, Horatio, The Venetian Republic ("Temple Primers"). Mac- 
millan. 

* Bryce, James, Holy Roman Empire. Macmillan. 

* Cheyney, E. P., Industrial and Social History of England. Mac- 

millan. 
Church, Beginnings of the Middle Ages (" Epochs "). Longmans. 
Clemens (Mark Twain), Joan of Arc. Harper. 
Cornish, F. W., Chivalry. Macmillan. 
Cox, G. W., The Crusades (" Epochs "). Longmans. 
Creighton, M., Age of Elizabeth (" Epochs "). Longmans. 
Cumiingham, Western Civilization (Vol. II, Medieval and Modern). 

Macmillan. 
Cunningham^ and McArthur, Outlines of English Industrial History. 

Macmillan. 
Davis, H. W. C, Charlemagne (" Heroes "). Putnam. 

* Emerton, Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages. Ginn. 
Medieval Europe. Ginn. 

Firth, Cromwell (" Heroes "). Putnam. 

Gardiner, S. R., Student's History of England. Longmans. 

The Puritan Revolution {" Epochs "). Longmans. 

The Thirty Years' War (" Epochs "). Longmans. 

Gibbins, Industrial History of England. Methuen ; London. 
Gilman, The Saracens {" Nations "). Putnam. 

Gray, The Children's Crusade. Houghton. 

* Green, J. R., History of the English People. 4 vols. Burt; New 

York. 

Or, in place of this last work, 

* Green, J. R., Short History of the English People. Am. Book Co. 
Green, Mrs., Henry II. Macmillan. 

Hughes, Thomas, Alfred the Great. Macmillan. 

Jenks, Edxoard Plantagenet (" Heroes "). Putnam. , 

Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars. Putnam. 

Jiriczek, Northern Hero Legends. Macmillan. 

Johnston, C, and Spencer, C, Ireland's Story. Houghton. 

Lane-Poole, Saladin (" Heroes "). Putnam. 

Lindsay, T. M., Luther and the German Reformation, Scribner. 



APPENDIX 3 

Masterman, J. H. B., Dawn of Medieval Europe {" Six Ages "). Mac- 
millan. 

Motley, The Student's Motley, — the best history of the Dutch RepubHc 
in its heroic age ; edited by Griffis. Harper. 

Mullinger, Universittj of Cambridge. Longmans. 

Oman, C. W. C, Byzantine Empire (" Nations ")• Putnam, 

Pears, E., Fall of Constantinople. Harper. 

Perry, F., St. Louis {" Heroes "). Putnam. 

Pollard, History of England (" Home University "). Holt. 

* Shepherd, W. R., Historical Atlas. Holt. 

Stubbs, Early Plantagenets {" Epochs "). Longmans. 

Tout, T. F., Edward I. Macmillan. 

Van Dyke, History of Painting. New York. 

Walker, W., The Reformation. Scribner. 

Ward, The Counter-Reformation. Longmans. 

Willert, Henry of Navarre (" Heroes ")• Putnam. 

Woodward, W. H., Expayision of the British Empire, 1600-1902. Put- 
nam. 

Zimmem, H., The Hansa (" Naiions ")■ Putnam. 

Group II 

Ashley, Introduction to English Economic History. Vol. I, Part 1. 
Longmans. 

Beard, Martin Luther. London. 

Beazley, Prince Henry the Navigator (" Heroes "). Putnam. 

Bourne, E. G., Spain in America (Am. Nation Series). Harper. 

Bradley, Wolfe. Macmillan. 

Caldecott, Alfred. English Colonization and Empire. (University Ex- 
tension Manuals.) New York. 

Cutts, Parish Priests and their People. London. 

Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages. New York. 

Du Chaillu, The Viking Age. 2 vols. Murray. 

Fletcher, Gustavus Adolphus (" Heroes"). Putnam. 

Fox-Botime, Sir Philip Sidney (" Heroes "). Putnam. 

Gasquet, F. A., Parish Life in Medieval England. New York. 

Harrison, F., William the Silent. Macmillan. 

Henderson, E., Short History of Germany. 2 vols, in one. Mac- 
millan. 

Hodgkin, T., Charles the Great. Macmillan. 

James, G. P. R., History of Chivalry. Harper. 

Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages. London. 

Keary, The Vikings in Western Christendom. Putnam. 



4 APPENDIX 

Liibke, History of Art. 2 vols. Dodd and Mead. 

McCabe, Abelard. Putnam. 

Morison, Life and Times of St. Bernard. Macmillan. 

Parkman, Francis, New France, Half Century of Conflict, Montcalm 

and Wolfe. Little, Brown, and Co. 
Putnam, Ruth, Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages. Putnam. 
Robinson and Rolfe, Petrarch. Putnam. 
Sabatier, .S7. Francis. Scribner. 
Saintsbury, Flourishing of Romance. Scribner. 
Seeley, Expansion of England. Macmillan. 
Smith, J. H., The Troubadours at Home. Putnam. 
Stephens, W. R. W., Hildebrand and His Times. Longmans. 
Storrs, Bernard of Clairvaux. Scribner. 
Story of the Burnt Njal (Dassent, translator). New York. 
Symonds, J. A., Short History of the Renaissance in Italy (Edited by 

Pearson). Scribner. 
Vincent, The Age of Hildebrand. Scribner. 
Wiel, Venice (" Nations "). Putnam. 
York-Powell, Alfred the Truth-Teller. Putnam. 

B. FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE PRESENT 

TIME 

GROtrp I 
Source Material. 

* Anderson, F. M., Constitutions and Other Documents Illustrative of the 

History of France, 1789-1907. H. W. Wilson Co. ; White Plains, 

N.Y. 
Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History {1650- 

1908). 2 vols. Ginn. 
Lee's Source Book, and Pennsylvania Reprints, as under first list above. 

Modem Accounts. 

Andrews, C. M., Historical Development of Modern Europe. (From 

1815 to 1897.) Putnam. 
Barker, J. E., Modern Germany. London. 
Cesaresco, Cavour. Macmillan. 
Crawford, Switzerland To-day (1911). New York. 

* Gardiner, Mrs. B. M., French Revolution (" Epochs "). Longmans. 
Gibbons, H. A., New Map of Europe (1911-1914). The Century Co. 
Hayes, Carlton, Modern Europe. 2 vols. Macmillan (Vol. II covers 

1815-1915.) 
** Hazen, C. D., Europe since 1815. Holt. 



APPENDIX 5 

Headlam, J. W., Bismarck (" Heroes "). Putnam. 
Lowell, E. J., Eve of the French Revolution. Houghton. 
McCarthy, Justm, Epoch of Reform, 1830-1850 ("Epochs"). Long- 
mans. 

* Mathews, Shailer, French Revolution. Longmans. 

Ogg, F. A. Social Progress in Contemporary Europe. (An admirable 
brief survey from 1789 to 1912.) Macmillan. 

* Phillips, W. A., Modern Europe {1815-1900). Macmillan. 
Ransome, Arthur, Russia in 1919. 

Robins, Raymond, Colonel Robins' Story (of Bolshevist Russia) ; edited 

by WiUiam Hard. 
Rose, J. H., Life of Napoleon I. 2 vols, in one. Macmillan. 

* Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era. Cambridge Press. 

* Rise of Democracy in Great Britain. New York. 

Sparge, John, Elements of Socialism. Macmillan. 
Bolshevism. Macmillan. 

Group II 

Carlyle, The French Revolution. 3 vols. Putnam. 

Hannay, Castelar. Macmillan. 

Kerr, P. H. and A. C, Growth of the British Empire. Longmans. 

King, Bolton, History of Italian Unity, 1814-1871. Scribner. 

Kirkup, T., History of Socialism. Macmillan. 

Lloyd, A Sovereign People (Switzerland). New York. 

McCarthy, Justin, England in the Nineteenth Century. Putnam. 

McCarthy, J. H., England under Gladstone. London. 

Nevison, Dawn in Russia. New York. 

Russell, German Social Democracy. Longmans. 

Seignobos, Europe since 1814- Holt. 

Skrine, Expansion of Russia {" Cambridge Series ")• Cambridge 

Press. 
Stephens, H. Morse, The French Revolution. Scribner. 

Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815. Macmillan. 

Stillman, W. J., The Union of Italy, 1815-1895 (" Cambridge Series "). 

Cambridge Press. 
Wallace (and others), Progress of the Century (Nineteenth). Harper. 
Willert, Mirabeau. Macmillan. 

No attempt is made to list fiction, though some of the best works 
of that kind are referred to in footnotes or at the close of chapters above. 
Nor is any list of books given upon the World War. The footnotes and 
chapter bibliographies list many of the most important ones — as they 
rank at present — but the histories of the war are not yet (1919) written. 



INDEX 



Pronunciation, except for familiar names and terms, is shown by 
division into syllables and accentuation. When diacritical marks for 
English names are needed, the common marks of Webster's Dic- 
tionaries are used. German and French pronunciation can be in- 
dicated only imperfectly to those who are not famihar with the 
languages ; but attention is called to the following marks : the soft 
aspirated guttural sound g of the German is marked g ; the correspond- 
ing ch (as in ich) is marked k ; the sound of the nasal French n is marked 
n ; for the German a and (in the equivalents are indicated, to prevent 
confusion with English a; o is always the German letter ; and u is 
the German diphthong or the equivalent French u. In French words 
with an accent on the final syllable, that accent only is marked ; but 
it should be understood that in such words the syllables as a rule re- 
ceive nearly equal stress. 



Aachen (aK'en), 47, 54, 56. 

Aar-gau', 546. 

Abbey, defined, 36. 

Absolutism, defined, 19. 

Act of Settlement (English), 213. 

Administrative Coxirts, hi France, 
497-498 ; in Geniian Empire, 
508 ; in Italy, 525. 

Ad-ri-an-o'ple, Visigothic victory 
at, 28 ; reoccupied by Turks in 
1913, 597. 

Adriatic Sea, dividing line between 
Greek and Latin civilizations 
in Roma Empire, 17 and note ; 
between Roman-Teutonic and 
Greek-Slav Europe, 29 ; be- 
tween Holy Roman and Greek 
empires, 48, 51. 

Af-g/ian-is-tan', 553, 554 ; Rus- 
sian advance in, after 1870, 576. 

Africa, partition after 1884, 552- 
553 ; after World War, 688. 
See Egypt, Cape Colony, South 
Africa. 



Agriculture, under Roman Empire, 
large holdings, serfdom, etc., 18, 
23 ; in Feudal age, 67-69 ; 
revolution in, in England (in- 
closures for sheep farming), 
182-183 ; in France before 
Revolution, 254, 257 ; as af- 
fected by " Industrial Revolu- 
tion " in England, 354-355, 
378-380; in France to-day, 499. 

Air-planes, in commerce, 566 ; in 
war, 616, 670. 

Aisne (ane). Battle of, 645. 

Albania, 590 ; Kingdom of, 596. 

Albert, King of Belgium, 618. 

Al-bi-gen'ses, 150, 151. 

Alexander " the Great," 10. 

Alexandria in Egypt, under Rome, 
12, 13 ; Patriarchate of, 26 ; 
conquered by Saracens, 43. 

Alfred the Great, 59. 

Al-ge'ri-a, and France, 501. 

Al'lah, term explained, 39. 

Alphabet. See Writing. 



8 



INDEX 



Al-sace', annexed by France, 177 ; 

serfdom in, in 1789, 254 ; seized 

by Germany in 1871, 486 ; 

under German rule, 506-509 ; 

restored to France, and French 

rule in, 687 and note. 
Al-va, Duke of, 167. 
America, discovery, 217-220 ; 

efTect upon Europe, 217, 221 ; 

Spain's failure in, 221-222 ; 

France's failure, 223-225 ; Eng- 

Ush success in, 225-226, 243- 

245. See American Revolution 

and United States. 
American Revolution, 246-247 ; 

and Rousseau, 262 ; and French 

Revolution, 265, 267, 271 ; and 

English reform, 428. 
Amiens (am-yiin'), Peace of, 315. 
Ancient History, review of, 

to 1520 A.D., 1-137. 
Andrea del Sarto, 132. 
Anne Boleyn (bool'in), 153, 154. 
Anzacs, 621 and note. 
Arabic Notation, 90. 
Arbitration. See Inlernalional 

Arbitration. 
Arc, Joan of, 114. 
Archbishops, origin, 25 ; in Middle 

Ages, 74. 
Architecture, Gothic, 104. 
Aristotle (ar-is-t6t"l), authority in 

Middle Ages, 100. 
Arkwright, Richard, 358. 
Armada, Spanish, 163, 168 ; and 

America, 222. 
Armaments, increase after 1871, 

570 and pas.siru. 
Armenian Massacres, by Turks, in 

1894-1895, 521-522 ; in World 

War, 628. 
Ashtey, Lord (Shaftesbury), and 

Factory acts, 378, 450, 451. 



Askewe, Anne, 156. 

Asquith, English premier, 452, 477, 
480. 

Astronomy, debt to Arabs, 90. 

Augsbiiro, Confession, 144 ; Peace 
of, 144, 145 ; principles of, in 
Peace of WestphaUa, 177. 

Austerlitz, Battle of, 316. 

Australia, becomes Enghsh, 247 ; 
convict camp, 470 ; growth of 
commonwealths in, 470-471 ; 
free " responsible " governments, 
471 ; pioneer in democracy, 471 ; 
federal union, 474 ; loyalty to 
England, 474-475 ; in World 
War, 619, 621. 

"Australian Ballot, " 471. 

Austrasia, part of Prankish state, 
37. 

Austria, early " east mark," 87 ; 
becomes Hapsbiu"g possession, 
118, 119 ; champion of Europe 
against Turk, 121 ; in European 
alliance against Louis XIV, 
230-233 ; wins Netherlands and 
Spanish Italy (Sicily and Milan), 
233 ; loses Silesia, 242 ; in wars 
of French Revolution, passim 
and esp. 305 ff. ; and Bona- 
parte's campaigns in Italy, 305 ; 
accepts Venice for Lombardy 
and Belgium, 305 ; crushed 
again in 1799, 308-310 ; and 
in 1805, 316-317 ; and in 1809, 
319 ; alliance with Napoleon, 
319 ; loses title as head of 
Holy Roman Empire, and be- 
comes Empire of Austria, 321- 
322 ; secures Lombardy and 
Venetia, and control over Italy, 
for Belgium at Congress of 
Vienna, 378 ; and Holy Al- 
liance, 342 ff. ; and Revolution 



INDEX 



9 



of 1848, 393 ff. ; conglomerate 
character, 393, 529 ; Francis 
Joseph's repudiation of liberal 
promises, 394 ; repression and 
race jealousies, 394—395 ; and 
Italy, 399-400 ; restores old 
system in Germany after 1848, 
397-398 ; tricked by Bismarck 
into Danish War, 417 ; intro- 
duction of parhamentary govern- 
ment after defeat by France 
and Italy in 1859, 529-530 ; 
and Six Weeks' War, 417 ; ex- 
cluded from Germany, 418 ; 
reorganized as A ustria- Hungary, 
which see. 

Austria-Hungary, dual monarchy, 
organized, 529-530 ; history 
(1867-1914), 530 ff. ; and Triple 
Alliance, 568-569 ; ambitions 
in Balkans,' 593, 594-595 ; an- 
nexes Bosnia, 595 ; anti-Serb 
feehng, 598 ; see World War; 
armistice and revolution, 661 ; 
stern peace and dissolution, 677, 
690. 

Avignon (a-ven-y6n), Papacy at, 
116. 

" Babylonian Captivity " of the 
Church, at Avignon, 116-117. 

Babylonians, 4-6. 

Bacon, Francis, and experimental 
method, 179. 

Bacon, Roger, 103-104 ; question 
as to reaching Asia by saiUng 
west, 218 ; and mariner's com- 
pass, 221 ; prophecy of steam 
as motive power, 362-363. 

Bagdad (Berlin to Bagdad Rail- 
road), 597. 

" Balance of Power'" theory, 279 ; 
and wars to maintain, 230 ff. 



Balkans, the, 590-598. See Serbia 
and other states. 

Balkan Wars, 1912-1913, 596-598. 

Ball, John, 108. 

Barbarian Invasions, fourth cen- 
tury, etc., 27 ff. ; after Charle- 
magne, 55-56 ; see Slavs, Moors, 
Norsemen.; as a cause of feudal- 
ism, 59 ff. 

Bastille (bas-teel'), overthrow and 
celebration of, 272-273. 

Batavian Republic, 305, 319. 

Battle, Trial by, 32, 33. 

Beet Sugar, invention, 317. 

Bela Kun, 676. 

Belfort, saved to France in 1871, 
486. 

Belgium (see Netherlands for, until 
1798), annexed to France in 
1794, 305 ; given to Holland 
by Congress of Vienna, 328, 332 ; 
independent in 1830, 350 ; pro- 
tected and neutrahzed, 351 ; 
constitution, 537-538 ; fran- 
chise, 538 ; kulturkampf in, 
538-539 ; and World War, 539, 

610 ff. 

Belleau (b6l-lo') Wood, Battle of, 

658. 
" Benefit of Clergy," 73-74. 
" Benevolences," as source of 

royal revenue, 192, 193. 
" Benevolent Despots," the, and 

failure, 250-251. 
Berlin, Congress of (1878), 458, 

593. 
" Berlin to Bagdad," 597. 
Bessarabia, 590. 
Bethmann-Hollweg, Chancellor, 

611 and passim. 
Bible, the English, 154. 

Bill of Rights, the EngUsh, 209- 
210. 



10 



INDEX 



Bishop, origin, 25 ; in Middle 
Ages, 72-73. 

Bismarck, Otto von, in 1848, 396 ; 
and making of Germany, 414 ff. ; 
moral judgment upon, 423- 
424 ; duplicity in matter of 
Tunis, 503 ; develops policy of 
German Empire (1871-1890), 
514-520 ; and Socialism, 515- 
517 ; and the frontier peoples, 
518-519 ; and colonies, 519- 
520 ; fall, 520 ; and Triple 
Alliance, 568-569. 

Black Death, the, 106-107. 

Black Hole, the, at Calcutta, 244. 

Blanc, Louis, 387, 389. 

Blen'hdm, Battle of, 233. 

Blucher (blii'Ker), at Waterloo, 
331. 

Boccacio (b6k-kat'ch6), 131. 

Boche (epithet for German), 676. 

Boers, and England, 474. 

Bohemia, Hussites in, 117-118, 
175 ; and Thirty Years' War, 
175-176 ; held to Catholicism, 
177 ; and Revolution of 1848, 
393-394. See Czecho-Slavs. 

Bolsheviki (b6l-sh6-vi'ke) , vic- 
tory of, 645 ; and Brest-Litovsk, 
653-656 ; Socialist practice, 

691 ; not a democracy, 691- 

692 ; victory over " emigrants " 
and reactionaries and Allied 
blockade, 692-694. 

Bonaparte. See Napoleon. 
Boniface VHI, 115-116. 
Borgia (Alexander VI), 118. 
Bosnia, annexed by Austria, 561, 

595 ; history to that time, 591, 

593 ; part of new South Slav 

state, 677. 
Boulogne (boo-lon'), Napoleon at, 

316 ; and Robert Fulton, 364. 



Boyne, Battle of, 461. 

Brandenbiiro, Mark of, origin, 87 
growth into Electorate, 240 
* acquired by HohenzoUerns, 240 
under Great Elector, merged in 
Prussia, 241 ; which see. 

Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 653-655. 

Bright, John, and Corn Law re- 
peal, 454-455. 

Britain, becomes England, 56-58. 

Bronze Age, the, 47. 

Brooke, Lord, and free thought, 
206. 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, and 
child labor, 378, 450. 

Browning, Robert, 441. 

Brunswick, Duke of, proclamation 
against France, 290. 

Bulgarians, history to 1800, 591- 
592 ; see Balkans and Balkan 
Wars; join Teutons in World 
War, 622 ff. ; collapse and 
armistice, 660 ; peace treaty. 
690. 

Bull, papal, term explained, 74. 

Bundesrath (boon'd6s-rat), 505. 

Bunyan, John, 207. 

Byron, Lord, 345, 441. 

Byzant (bg'sant), the, 90. 

Cabinet government, in England, 
development, 429-435 ; con- 
trasted with American " Presi- 
dential " government, 435 ff. 

Cahiers (ka-ya'), 271, note. 

Caliph, term explained, 42, note. 

Calonne (ka-l6n'), 265. 

Calvin, John, 147 ff . ; and Servetus, 
148. 

Calvinism, 145-148. See Hugue- 
nots, Presbyterianism. 

Cambarceres (kam-bar-c6r-a'), 301. 

Cambon (k6m-b6n'), 296. 



INDEX 



11 



Campo Formio, Peace of, 305. 

Canada, home rule in 1837, 470 ; 
Dominion of, 473 ; loyalty to 
England, 475 ; in World War, 
475. 

Canals, and locks, 356. 

Canning, and Spanish America, 
344-345. 

Cape Colony, 328. See South 
Africa. 

Capet (ka-pa'), Hugh, 85. 

Capetian kings, 85. 

Capitalism, and Industrial Revolu- 
tion, 372 ff. 

Car-bo-na'ri, 341. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 441, 450. 

Car-n6<', " Organizer of Victory," 
296, 297, 298. 

Car-o-lin'gi-ans, 85 ; degenerate, 
34 ff. 

Cartwright, Edmund, and power 
loom, 360. 

Cas'te-lar, 532-533. 

Catherine of Aragon, 153. 

Catherine of Medici (ma'd6-che), 
172. 

CavaUers, the English, 201. 

Cavour (ka-voor'), 409, 410-411, 
412-413. 

Celt, term, 56, note. 

Centralization, in government, ex- 
plained, 19. 

Chambord (shon-bor'). Count of, 
492. 

Champs de Mars (shoii de miirce). 
Massacre of, 279. • 

Charlemagne (sharl'man), name, 
46 ; achievements, 46-47 ; re- 
stores Roman Empire in the 
West, 47-48 ; character of civi- 
lization under, 48-49 ; attempts 
to revive learning, 49-50 ; place 
in history, 50-51 ; death, 54. 



Charles I, of England, 191, 203. 

Charles II, of England, 203, 205, 
207. 

Charles VIII, of France, 126. 

Charles X, of France, 347-349. 

Charles I, of Spain, and Charles V 
of Holy Roman Empire, 126, 
128, 141-145. 

Charles XII, of Sweden, 238. 

Charles Albert, of Sardinia, 399, 
400, 408. 

Charles Martel (mar-t6l'), 38, 41- 
42. 

Chartists, in England, 444-445. 

Chateau-Thierry (sha-to' tyar'ry), 
Battle of, 658. 

Chaucer, 104, 107, 139. 

Child Labor, in America in 1800, 
375, 376 ; in England in 1800, 
377-378 ; factory act of 1833, 
451 ; later legislation, 452. 

China, and American " open door " 
policy, 554-555 ; war with 
Japan, 555 ; seizure of ports 
by Germany and other European 
Powers, 556 ; Bo.xer Rebellion, 
556 ; and Russ-Jap War, 559 ; 
a RepubUc, 561-562 ; growing 
militarism, 562 ; enters World 
War, 688 ; loss of Shantimg, 
688 ; refuses to sign treaty, 689. 

Christianity, rise under Roman 
Empire, 25-26. See Roman 
Catholic Church, Reformation,, 
and names of sects. 

Church of England, origin, 153- 
157 ; becomes Protestant under 
Edward VI, 158 ; persecution 
of CathoHcs, 158 ; Catholicism 
restored under Mary Tudor, 
159 ff. ; finally Protestant under 
EHzabeth, 192 ff. ; Presbyterian 
in Civil War, 202 ; Episcopacy 



12 



INDEX 



restored at Stuart Restoration, 
207 ; persecution of dissenters, 
207 ff. ; and Methodist move- 
ment, 215 ; disestablished in 
Ireland, 457 ; in Wales, 482. 

Churchill, Winston, 477, 479. 

Cid, Song of, 104. 

Circuit Judges, origin in England, 
79. 

Clemenceau, " the Tiger," 501, 
650, 679 ff. 

Clermont, the, of Fulton, 364, 365. 

Clive, Robert, 243-244. 

Clovis, 37. 

Cobden, Richard, 454. ' 

Code Napoleon, the, 312. 

Colonial Federation, 473-474. See 
Imperial Federation. 

Columbus, Christopher, 218, 220, 
221. 

Common Law, the English, origin, 
79. 

Commune of Paris, in French 
Revolution, 274 ; in 1871, 486- 
489. 

Compixrgation, Trial by, 33. 

Concordat, Napoleon's, 311, 312. 

C6n-d6t-ti-er'i, 132. 

Congo Free State, 552, 553. 

Constance, Council of, 117-118. 

Constantine, Roman Emperor, and 
Christianity, 25. 

Constantine Palaeologus (pii- 
le-o'Io-giis), 121. 

Constantinople, conquered by 
Turks, 121. 

Continental System, of Napoleon, 
317-318 ; failure, 324. 

Co-per'ni-cus, 178. 

Comeille (kor-na'y), 234. 

Corn Laws, English, and repeal, 
453, 454. 

Correggio (kor-ed'jo), 132. 



Cotton Gin, 360. 

Counter-Reformation, the, 149 ff. 
Coup d'etat (koo de-ta'), explained, 

309, note ; of Napoleon I, 309 ; 

of Napoleon III, 403. 
Cranmer, Archbishop, 154, 159. 
Crecy (kres'si), Battle of, 106. 
Cretan civilization, 6-7. 
Crete, ceded by Turkey to Greece, 

522. 
Cri-me'an War, 406 ; and Cavour, 

409. 
Crompton, Samuel, and the 

" mule," 358, 359. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 201-205. 
Crusades, 92-94 ; and results, 

93-94. 
Crystal Palace Exhibition, 456. 
Custozza (k6os-t6d'za), Battle of, 

400. 
Czechs (chgks). See Bohemia. 
Czecho-Slav Republic, 677. 

Daguerre (da-g6r'), 368. 

Dane-law (or Danelagh), 59. 

Danes. See Norsemen. 

Danish War, of 1864, 416. 

Dante (dan'te), 104 ; and im- 
perial idea, 125. 

Danton (dSn-ton'), 286-287, 291- 
292, 295, 302. 

Danzic, a " free " city, 687. 

" Dark Ages," the, defined, 29 ; 
everyday life in, 34-36, 128_ 
See Feudalism. 

Darwin, Charles, 441. 

Den'e-kin, Russian general, 692- 
693. 

Denmark, Danish war, 416 ; to- 
day, 540-541. 

Desmoulins (da-moo-laft'), Camille 
(ka-mel'), 272, 302. 

Dickens, Charles, 441, 450. 



INDEX 



13 



Diderot (de-dro'), 261. 

Di-6-cle'ti-an, Emperor, reforms, 
19. 

Directory, the (1795-1799), 304- 
309. 

" Disestablishment " in Ireland 
and Wales. See Church of Eng- 
land. 

Disraeli (diz-ra'li), Benjamin, 442, 
445, 458. 

" Divine Right," theory of, pro- 
claimed in England by Stuarts, 
188 ff. 

Domestic System, in manufac- 
tures, 185, 371. 

Donation of Pippin, 45, 46. 

" Do-nothing Kings," 37, 45. 

Dragonades of Louis XIV, 231. 

Drake, Sir Francis, 163, 225, 226, 
227. 

Dreyfus Trial, the, 498, note. 

Dual Alliance, the, 569 ; liecomes 
Trijile Entente, 570. 

Dumouriez (doo-moo're-a'), 294. 

Duns the Scot, 101. 

Duodecimal System, from Baby- 
lonia, 6. 

Duplex (dii-pla'), 242, 244. 

Dutch Republic. See Holland. 

Economics, term, 63, note 

Edgar the Peaceful, 59. 

Edward I, of England, 83. 

Edward II, deposed, 105. 

Edward III, 105. 

Edward VI, 157-158. 

Egbert, of Wessex, 59. 

Egypt, home of Bronze civiliza- 
tion, 4 ; contributions to civiliza- 
tion, 4-6 ; modern, under Eng- 
land, 468-469, 502 ; demand for 
independence, 502. 

Eisner, Kurt, 676. 



" Electors," the seven of the Holy 
Roman Empire, 141, note. 

Electricity, Age of, 563-564. 

Eliot, Sir John, 191 ; and " re- 
sponsible government," 191- 
192 ; resolutions of 1629, 1C5 ; 
death, 196. 

Elizabeth, of England, 160 IT. ; 
policy, 161 ; and Spain, 163- 
164 ; and Elizabethan Renais- 
sance, 164-165. 

Elizabethan Renaissance, 164-165. 

Emmet, Robert, 462. 

Empire, term explained, 47, note. 

Employers' Liability. See Social 
Insurance. 

Ems Dispatch, the, 421. 

Encyclopedists, the, 261, 262. 

England, conquered by Teutons, 
56 ff. ; Teutonic states in, 56 ; 
conquest slow and thorough, 57 ; 
name explained, 56 ; Saxon 
England and local institutions, 
76-77 ; Norman Conquest, 77 ; 
Norman organization, 77 ; 
Henry II and Europe, 79 ; 
and development of Common 
Law, 79 ; beginnings of Parlia- 
ment, 80-85 ; Hundred Years' 
War, 105 ff. ; Reformation in, 
153 ff. ; and Spain, 163 ; Eliza- 
bethan Renaissance, 164—165 ; 
and conquest of Ireland, 164 ; 
review for changes of 1450- 
1600 (inclosures and manufac- 
tures), 181-184 ; and the Puri- 
tans, 186 ff. ; and the Stuarts, 
187 ff. ; Civil War, 198-206 
Stuart Restoration, 205 ff. 
Revolution of 1688, 209 ff. 
political gains of, 211 ff. ; be- 
ginnings of ministerial govern- 
ment, 212 ; under the Georges, 



14 



INDEX 



214 ; in eighteentli century, 
214-215 ; becomes Great 
Britain, 215-216 ; in America, 
225 flf. ; and Louis XIV, 231 ff. ; 
wins India, 243-244 ; and 
Canada, 245 ; wars of French 
Revolution, which see ; gains 
at Congress of Vienna, 328-329 ; 
protests against Holy Alliance 
intervening in Spanish .\merica, 
342-345 ; growth of towns after 
Industrial Revolution, 374-375 ; 
conditions of factory towns about 
1800, 375 ; inclosures after 1760, 
378-380 ; political reaction in 
eighteenth century, 425-428 ; 
and American Revolution, 428 ; 
reaction intensified after Na- 
poleonic Wars, 429-430 ; slow 
gains after 1821, 430 ; First 
Reform Bill, 431-433 ; Lords 
take second place, 434 ; minis- 
terial government discussed, 434- 
438 ; Victorian Age, 439 ff. ; 
era of social reform after 1832, 
441 ff. ; political administra- 
tions, 441-442 ; Disraeli and 
Gladstone, 442-443 ; trade 
union movement, 443 ; Chart- 
ists, 444 ; Second Reform Bill 
(1867), 445-446 ; Third (1884), 
446 ; ballot and other reforms, 
446-447 ; local government re- 
form, 447 ff. ; social reform in 
Victorian Age, 450, 464 ; free 
trade, 455 ; Gladstone's reforms 
(1868-1874), 456-457 ; and Irish 
" Home Rule " agitation, to 
1884, 462-464 ; colonies, etc., 
465-475 ; reform since 1905, 
476-482 ; Lloyd George's bud- 
get of 1909, 478-480 ; Fourth 
Parliamentary Reform Bill 



(1914-1919), 483, 484 ; " Votes 
for Women," 483-484 ; with- 
draws from supporting Turkey, 
522 ; in Africa after 1884, 553- 
554 ; Home Rule in 1914 and 
after, 582-583. See World War 
and Peace Coiigress. 
E-ras'mus, 133-134 ; and the 
Reformation, 133, 137. 

Factory Acts, 451, 452, 479. 

Factory System, 372 ff. 

Falconry, 69, 70. 

Ferdinand of Aragon, 121, 126-128. 

Ferrer, Francisco, 536. 

Feudalism, 54 ff. ; result of 
anarchy, 59-60 ; terms (fief, 
etc.), 60, 63-64 ; origin of 
feudal privileges, 60-61 ; castles, 
61-62 ; men-at-arms and armor, 
61-62 ; " decentralization," 62 ; 
landholding, 63-64 ; lords and 
vassals, 64 ; private war, 65 ; 
and the workers, 65-70 ; life of 
the fighters, 70-72 ; learning 
and art, 99-100 ; crushed in 
England by Wars of Roses and 
New Monarchy, li3 ; Age of 
(divisions), 128-129 ; and gun- 
powder, 134 ; survives on Conti- 
nent until 1848, 392. 

Finland, Swedish, in ninth cen- 
tury, 55 ; part seized by Russia, 
239 ; all ceded to Russia in 
1814, 329 ; Russianized, 583 ; 
new self-government in 1906, 
589 ; woman suffrage, 589 ; 
World War (independence), 677. 

Firemaking, stages in, 3-4. 

First Reform Bill (English), 431- 
433. 

Fiske, John, on England's coloniza- 
tion, 246. 



INDEX 



15 



Fist-hatchet, 3. 

Fitch, John, and steamboat, 364. 

Fixune (fu-ma'), 684. 

Foch (f5sh), Ferdinand, 615, 656, 
659, 683. 

Fortescue, Sir John, 112, 181-182. 

Fourier (foii-ri-a'), 382. 

Fourteen Points, the, of Woodrow 
Wilson, 652-653 ; ignored in 
Peace Congress, 689. 

France, political beginning in Ver- 
dun partition, 54-55 ; later 
Carolingians, 85 ; made by 
Capetian kings, 85-86 ; con- 
trast with English history, 86 ; 
Hundred Years' War, 105 flf. ; 

• new patriotism and strong mon- 
archy, 114 ; first power in 
Europe, 115 ; wars for Italy, 
126, 128, 143 ; Huguenots, 
145 ff. ; gains Metz, 145 ; 
threatened by two Hapsburg 
powers, 145 ; wars of Hugue- 
nots and Catholics, 172-173 ; 
under Henry IV, 173-174 ; and 
Richeheu, 174 ; annexes Alsace, 
177 ; in America, 222 ff. ; 
threatens balance of power, 
229 ff. ; Age of Louis XIV, 
230-234 ; seizes Rhine districts 
and Strassburg, 231 ; horrible 
war methods, 232 ; loses in 
America and Asia, 233 ; crushed 
by war taxes, 233 ; intellectual 
leadership, 233-234 ; loses 
America and India to England, 
244-245 ; fatal weakness in 
America, 245 ; see French Revo- 
lution and Napoleon; terms of 
peace in 1814, 325 ; and Con- 
gress of Vienna, 329 ; the 
Hundred Days, 330-331 ; terms 
in 1815, 331 ; one of the five 



powers (1815-1848), 344 ff. ; in 
sympathy with Holy Alhance, 
343 ; reactionary Bourbon mon- 
archy, 347 ; Charter of 1815, 
347 ; and Charles X, 347-348 ; 
Revolution of 1830, 347-350 ; 
constitutional Orleans mon- 
archy, 350 ff. ; Industrial Revo- 
lution in, 363 ; history from 
1830 to 1848, 385-387 ; cor- 
ruption and narrow electorate, 
386-387 ; Revolution of 1848, 
387-392 ; " national work- 
shops," 390-391 ; Louis Na- 
poleon president of Second Re- 
public, 392, 403 ; Second 
Empire, 403 ff. ; cowp. d'etat of 
1851, 403-404 ; despotism, 404- 
405 ; prosperity, 405-406 ; and 
Crimean War, 406 ; and Italian 
War of 1859, 407 ; see Louis 
Napoleon; and Franco-Prussian 
War, 420 ff. ; siege of Paris, 
422, 485-486 ; National As- 
.sembly of 1871 and peace, 486 ; 
Commune of Paris, 486-489 ; 
establishment of Third Republic, 
490-495 ; attempts at mo- 
narchic restoration, 490-492 ; re- 
organization of society, 491 ; 
constitution of 1875, 492-493 ; 
Republicanism stable, 494 ; de- 
velopment to 1914, 495-504 ; 
struggle with church, 495-496 ; 
local government, 496-497 ; ad- 
ministrative courts, 497-498 ; 
education, 498 ; industry, 498- 
499 ; agriculture, 499 ; popula- 
tion, 499 ; a nation of little 
capitalists, 500 ; low level of 
politics, 501 ; Socialism in, 501 ; 
colonial empire, 501-504 ; in 
Africa, 553-554 ; in Asia, 556 ; 



16 



INDEX 



and Russ-Jap War, 569 ; and 
Dual Alliance, 569 ; and Triple 
Entente, 570. See World War 
and Peace Congress. 

Franciscans, 76. 

Franco-Prussian War, 420-422, 
485-486. 

Frankfort Assembly of 1848, 395- 
396. 

Franklin, Benjamin, and idea of 
written constitution in France, 
271. 

Franks, Clovis to Charlemagne, 
35-47. 

Frederick II of Prussia, 241 ff. ; 
contempt for morality, 249 ; a 
" benevolent despot," 249-250. 

Freedom of the Press, suppressed 
by Napoleon, 314-315 ; in Eng- 
land by reactionary Tory govern- 
ment after 1815, 429-430 ; in 
Russia in nineteenth century, 
582. 

French Revolution, 252 ff. ; abuses 
before, 252-259 ; spirit of change 
due to men of letters, 259-263 ; 
bankruptcy forces government 
to try reform (Turgot and 
Necker), 265-267 ; election of 
States General, 269 ; becomes 
National Assembly, 270 ; clash 
with king (Mirabeau's defiance), 
272 ; Bastille faUs, 272-273 ; 
Middle Class organize and seize 
authority, 274 ; abolition of 
privilege (August 4), 275 ; con- 
stitution making (1789-1791), 
276-282 ; Jacobins, 277 ; po- 
litical parties in Assembly, 277- 
278 ; constitution of 1791, 279- 
281 ; and the church, 281 ; 
land to the people, 282 ; war 
with European despots, 285- 



287 ; fall of Capetian mon- 
archy, 288-293 ; September 
Massacres, 291-292 ; • Revolu- 
tion becomes a propaganda, 
292-293 ; Republic and man- 
hood suffrage, 292-293 ; execu- 
tion of Louis, 293 ; Constitution 
of Year I, 293-294 ; " France 
girdled with foes," 294 ; Du- 
mouriez's treason, 294 ; Jacobins 
in power, 295 ; Girondists sup- 
pressed, by policy of Terror, 
296-300 ; constructive side, 300- 
301 ; dictatorship of Robes- 
pierre, 301-303 ; fall of Jaco- 
bins, 303-304 ; White Terror, 
304 ; the Directory, 304 ff. ; 
territorial gains in, 305. See 
Napoleon. 

Friars, 76. 

Frontenac, and attempt to intro- 
duce political assemblies in New 
France, 225. 

Fulton, Robert, 364. 

Ga-belle', the, 257. 

Gal-i-le'o, 179. 

Gal-lip'o-li, Battle of, 621. 

Gam-bet'ta, 485, 494, 495. 

Gar-i-bal'di, 411-412. 

Genghis Khan (jen'gis kiin), 235. 

George I, II, and III (of England), 
214 ; ni, and parliamentary 
reform, 428. 

" George Eliot," 441. 

George (Lloyd), and World War, 
635 ; in Peace Congress, 679. 

Germ theory of disease, 564. 

German, term explained and re- 
stricted, 52-53. 

German Empire, founded in 1871, 
423 ; constitution and character, 
505 ff. ; and Alsace, 506 ; no 



INDEX 



17 



reapportionment, 506 ; the em- 
peror, 506-507 ; " divine right," 
512 ; and Prussia, 506-507 ; 
militarism and pohce rule, 507- 
511 ; Junkers, 509 ; " Big Busi- 
ness," 509 ; " efficiency," 509 ; 
city government, 510 ; army, 
512-513 ; compared with Eng- 
land, 513-514 ; colonial empire, 
519 ff. ; and Turkey, 521 ; and 
China, 522 ; hostility to United 
States, 524 ; in Africa after 
1884, 553-554 ; and Triple Al- 
liance, 568-569 ; wrecks pro- 
posals for disarmament and 
arbitration, 571, 573-574 ; am- 
bitions in Balkans and Asia, 
595 ; wills World War, 599 ff. ; 
war worship, 599-604 ; pulls 
the strings and forces war, 605- 
610 ; invasion of Belgimn, 610 ; 
and England, 610-611 ; see 
World War; peace movement 
during war (Socialists), 650 ff. ; 
armistice and revolution, 662- 
663. 

German Republic, 675 ; and Peace 
Treaty of 1919, 686-688. 

Germanic Confederation, the 
(1814-1866), character, 336- 
337 ; under Metternich, 338- 
339 ; in abeyance in 1848, 395- 

397 ; restored by Austria, 397- 

398 ; final overthrow (Six 
Weeks' War), 418. 

Germany, and Charlemagne, 46 ; 
term restricted, 52-53 ; political 
beginnings, 54-55 ; Saxon kings, 
86-87 ; Otto I and expansion, 

87 ; and Holy Roman Empire 
and Italy for three centuries, 

88 ; " Fist law," 88 ; kingship 
restored by Rudolph of Haps- 



burg, 118 ; Austrian domination 
through rest of Middle Ages, 
119 ; falls behind in movement 
for national union, 126 ; begins 
Protestant revolt, 137 ff. ; be- 
comes Lutheran in North, 142- 
144 ; remains Catholic in South, 
149 ; Thirty Years' War, 174- 
175 ; ruin of, 176 ; Peace of 
Westphalia and loss of territory, 
and organization, 177-178 ; con- 
solidation by Napoleon hito 38 
states (summary of political 
chaos before), 319-321 ; social 
reforms under French influence, 
322-323 ; and Congress of 
Viefina, 327 ; and following 
reaction, 334-336. See Germanic 
Confederation, Prussia, German 
Empire, German Republic. 

Gibraltar, lost by Spain, 233 ; 
siege by Spain repulsed, 247. 

Gilds, 97, 185, 255. 

Giorgione (jor-jo'na), 132. 

Girondists, 284, 293, 295-296. 

Gladstone, William E., 442-443 ; 
reform administration of 1868- 
1874, 456-457 ; offends Labor, 
457-458 ; criticizes Disraeli's 
Turkish policy, 458 ; Third 
Reform Bill, 458-459 ; and 
Ireland, 462-4G3 ; adopts Home 
Rule plan, 463 ; defeated, 463- 
464 ; retires, 464 ; and the 
Boers, 472 ; last speech, against 
the Lords, 476. 

Goethe (ga'tg), 315. 

Gogol, 579. 

Goldsmith, 379. 

Good Hope, Cape, discovery, 220. 

Great Britain, 215. 

Greece, rising against Turkey in 
1821, 341, 592 ; Metternich 



IS 



INDEX 



tries to repress, 345 ; inde- 
pendence, 346. See World War. 

Greek Empire (Byzantine), 90, 92, 
121. 

Greek Fire, 41. 

Greek Language, study of, re- 
stored, 131, 132 ; influence upon 
recovery of Greek independence, 
345. 

Greeks, Ancient, 7 ; contrast with 
Oriental culture, 7-9 ; contribu- 
tions to civilization, 7-9 ; weak 
points in, 10 ; and Persia, 10. 

Gregory VII, Pope, 75. 

Grinde'cobbe, hero of 1381, 111. 

Guizot (ge-z6'), 348, 385-386, 388. 

Gunpowder, 116, 134. 

Gustavus Adolphus, 175-176. 

Habeas Corpus Act, 208. 
Hague Congresses, 571-573. 
Haig (hag). Sir Douglas, 634 and 

pasnim. 
Hampden, John, 193, 196-197. 
Hanseatic League, 99. 
Hapsbiirc, Rudolph of, 118-119. 
Hapsbiircs, the, 118, 119, 145, 232, 

233 ; end of, see World War. 
Hargreaves, James, and the spin- 
ning jenny, 357-358. 
Harvey, William, and " circulation 

of the blood," 179. See Servetus. 
Hay, John, and " open door," 554 ; 

and Germany, 555. 
Hebrews, 7. See Jews. 
He-gi'ra, the, 40. 
Henry U of England, 78-80. 
Henry IV, V, VI, of England, 111- 

112. 
Henry VII, 113. 
Henry VIII, 113, 153, 154, 155-158, 

163. 
Henry IV of France, 172, 173, 174. 



Henry the Navigator, 219. 

Herzegovina (h6rt-s6-go-ve'na), 
561. 

Hindenbiiro, 616, 635. 

HindenbiirG Line, the, 646. 

Hohenlinden, Battle of, 310. 

HohenzoUerns (hd-gn-tsol'grns), 
240, 241. 

Holland, see United Netherlands 
and Dutch Republic; 170 ; in- 
dependence, 177 ; under William 
of Orange, antagonist of 
Louis XIV, 230 ff. ; and French 
Revolution, 294, 305 ; Kingdom 
under Louis Bonaparte, 319 ; 
annexed to France, 319 ; King- 
dom of Netherlands (with Bel- 
gium annexed) in 1814, 328 ; 
loss of much colonial empire 
during Napoleonic Wars, 328 
loses Belgium in 1830, 350 
and Revolution of 1848, 392 
to-day, 539-540. 

" Holy AlUance," the, 341 ff. 

Holy Roman Empire, see Charle- 
niagne; place in history after 
800 A.D., 50-51 ; restored in 
962 A.D., 87 ; popes and em- 
perors, 88 ; lapses, but restored 
by Hapsburgs, 118 ; an Austrian 
state from 1273 to French Revo- 
lution, 119 ; mider Charles V, 
128 ; after Peace of Westphalia 
an open sham, 178 ; end in 1806, 
321. 

Home Rule. See Ireland. 

Hoover, Herbert C, 667-668. 

Huguenots (hii'g6-n6ts), 172-173, 
184, 224, 231 ; influence in 
America, 231, note. 

Hungarians, nomad invaders, 55, 
()2 ; repulsed, 87*; Christianized 
and settled, 87 ; and Turks, 121 ; 



INDEX 



19 



a conglomerate state, 393 ; 
Revolution of 1848, 393-395 ; 
failure of attempt at inde- 
pendence, 395. See Austria- 
Hungary. 

Hus, John, \ 17. 

Hxixley, 441. 

" Iconoclasts," 43-44. 

Imperial Federation, 475. 

Independents, tlie, " Puritans of 
Puritans," 187 ; in New Model, 
201, 202. 

India, in eighteenth century, 243 ; 
France and England in, 243- 
244 ; English crown colony, 
406-468. 

" Indirect Tax," term, 257, note. 

" Indulgences," and Reformation, 
138-140. 

Industrial Revolution, :}52 ff. ; in 
agriculture in England, 354- 
355 •; in transportation (canals, 
turnpikes), 355-356 ; in tex- 
tiles, 356-360 ; steam and iron, 
361-362 ; and cotton supply, 
363 ; and steam transportation, 
363-366 ; and the workers' 
lives, 370 ff. ; domestic system 
gives way to factory system, 
371-373 ; and new capitalism, 
372-373 ; growth of towns, 374- 
375 ; evil conditions in town 
life, 375 flf. ; in America in 1830, 
375-377 ; and child labor, 377- 
379 ; reaches France about 
1825, 387 ; Germany about 
1870, 509 ; Russia about 1890, 
583-584. See Inventions, Social- 
ism. 

" Infantry," 62. 

Initiative (the popular), in Switzer- 
land, 54^550. 



Innocent III, and the Albigenses, 
151. 

Inquisition, the Spanish, 150- 
152. 

International Arbitration, before 
World War, 570-574. See 
League of Nations. 

International Disarmament, re- 
jected at Hague Congresses 
(Ciermau opposition), 572, 573- 
574. See League of Nations. 

Inventions, in general, 1-2 ; 
chippej stone, 2-3 ; in Stone 
Age, 3 ; copper and bronze, 
4-5 ; alphabet, 6 ; at close of 
Middle Ages (gimpowder, print- 
ing, mariner's compass), 134 ; 
see Scientific Method; new period 
befpre French Revolution, 259- 
260 (and see Iiidustrial Revolu- 
tion) ; beet sugar, 317 ; three 
great periods, after 1800, 563- 
564 ; and medicine, 565 ; air- 
ships, 560 ; in war, 615-616. i 

Ireland, schools in eighth century, 
99 ; cruelty of English conquest, 
164 ; disestablishment of Eng- 
lish church, 457 ;, review of 
history to 1700, 460 ; in eight- 
eenth century, 461 ; " rack 
rent," 461-462 ; Rebellion of 
1798, 462 ; the " union " and 
struggle for repeal, 462 ; Fenian 
conspiracies, 462 ; land reform 
begun by Gladstone, 463 ; Home 
Rule agitation, 463-464 ; ap- 
parent victory in 1914, 582 ; de- 
layed by World War, 583. 

I-re'ne, Empress, 48. 

Isabella, of Ca.stile, 119. 

" Italia Irredenta," 527. 

Italy (after fall of Roman Empire 
in West), Justinian's reconquest, 



20 



INDEX 



31 ; Lombard invasion, 32 ; 
shattered to fragments, 32 ; 
and Holy Roman Empire, 87, 
126 ; battleground for France 
and Spain, 126 ; South falls to 
Spain, 126-128 ; North to Haps- 
burgs, 126-128 ; and Renais- 
sance, 130-133 ; commerce de- 
stroyed by discovery of new 
routes to Asia, 221 ; see Trealij 
of Utrecht; battleground in 
French Revolutionary wars, 305 ; 
Napoleon's perfidy to, 306 ; 
under Napoleon, 319 ; restored 
in 12 states by Congress of 
Vienna, 327 ; Revolutions of 
a820 and 1830, 398-399 ; 
" Young Italy," 399 ; Revolu- 
tions of 1848, 398-400; failure 
honorable, 400-401 ; Sardinia 
grows into Kingdom of Italy, 
410-424 ; constitution, 52.5 ; 
social conditions, 525-526 ; 
colonies and imperialism, 526- 
527 ; " Irredenta," 527 ; 

struggle with papacy, 527-528 ; 
and Triple Alliance, 569 ; war 
with Turkey in 1913, 596 ; 
enters World War, 624 ; col- 
lapse, 647-648 ; victory on the 
Piave, 658 ; imperialism in 
Peace Congress, 683 ; annexa- 
tions, 683 ; and Fiume, 684. 

Jacobins, name, 277. See French 
Revolution. 

James I, of England, 188 flf. 

James II, 209. 

Japan, Westernized, 555 ; war 
with China, 555 ; with Russia, 
557-559 ; enters World War 
for plunder, 619 ; and Shantung 
in Peace Treaty, 688. 



Jefferson, Thomas, quoted on 

European kings, 267. 
Jemmapes (zha-map'), Battle of, 

292. 
Jena (ya'na), Battle of, 317. 
Jesnits, 150. 
Jews, see Hebrews; persecuted in 

Russia, 582-583 ; and Poland 

in 1919, 677. 
Joan of Arc, 114. 
Joffre, and the Battle of the 

Marne, 614-615. 
Joseph II, of Austria, 250, 251. 
Jugo (yu'g6)-Slavs. See South 

Slavs. 
Junkers (yiinKers), 506, 509. 
Jury Trial, 80. 
Justinian Code, the, 31. 

Karlsbad Decrees, 338-339. 

Kar-dl'yi, 676. 

Kerensky, 644-645 ; asks world 

to recognize Bolshevists, 694. 
Kiau-chou (kyou'chou), 522, 556. 

See Shantung. 
King WUliam's War, 231-232. 
Kings of England, tables of, 153, 

213. 
Knox, John, 162. 
Kolchak, Admiral, 692-694. 
Koniggratz (koen'ig-griits). Battle 

of, 417. 
Ko-ran', the, 39. 
Ko-re'a, ceded by China to Japan, 

but secured by Russia, 555 ; 

and Russ-Jap War, 558, 559. 
Kos-ci-xis'ko, 249. 
Kos-so'va, Battle of, 121. 
Kot'ze-bue, 338. 
Kulturkampf, in France, 495-496 ; 

in German Empire, 514-515 ; 

in Italy, 527-528 ; in Belgium, 

538-539 ; in Spain, 586. 



INDEX 



21 



Labor Legislation (English), 451- 

457 ; as to strikes, 457-458 ; 

in Australia and New Zealand, 

471-479, 481^82, 700-701. 
Labor Party, in England, 477. 
Lafayette, 261, 274, 289, 290, 291, 

348, 349. 
Laibach (li'baK), Congress at, 342, 

343. 
La-ka-nSl', 301. 
Lamartine (la-mar-ten'), 386, 389- 

390. 
Langue-doc', 151. 
La Salle', 223. 
LassaUe', 515. 
Latimer, Bishop, 159. 
Latin, becomes " dead," 29 ; sole 

language of medieval learning, 

104 ; replaced in literatures by 

vernaculars, 104. 
Laud, Archbishop, 197. 
Lavoisier (la-vwa-zya'), 260. 
League of Nations, proposed by 

Woodrow Wilson in 1917, 640 ; 

organized (and character), 628- 

686. 
Lechfeld (I6k'f6lt), Battle of, 87. 
Leim'biirG - Styr'iim - Wa'helms - 

dorf, 320. 
Leipsig (lip'siK), Battle of, 325. 
Lenin (la-nen'), Nicholai, 587. 
Leo X, Pope, 140, 141. 
Leo the Isaurian, 43. 
Le-o-nar'do da Vinci (ven'che), 

132. 
Le-pan'to, Battle of, 171. 
Letters of the Seal, 259. 
Leyden, relief of, and the Uni- 
versity, 167, 168. 
Liaou Yang (le-ou yang'), Battle 

of, 558. 
Lich-nows'ky, Prince, 598, 604 

and note, 608. 



Liebknecht (Igp'kngKt), Karl, de- 
nounced Austria's idtimatum, 
605 ; denounced Kaiser's plan 
for World War, 609, note ; 
attempts revolution after the 
war, 674-675. 

Limerick, " City of the Broken 
Treaty," 461. 

Little Englanders, and Imperial- 
ism, 474. 

Livia (Livonia), 677, 678. 

Lloyd George, David, 477 ; bud- 
get of 1909, 478-479 ; demand 
for social justice, 567-568. "See 
World War and Peace Congress. 

Lollards, the, 108, 117. 

Lombards, 32, 44, 45, 47. 

Long Day, the, in labor, 375-377. 

Long Parliament, the, 198 ff. 

Lords, House of, reduced to sub- 
ordinate p(jsition in struggle for 
First Reform Bill, 433 ; ques- 
tion of mending or ending, 448 ; 
Gladstone's challenge, 476 ; con- 
flict with Asquith's 1906 ministry, 
477-479 ; veto taken away, 480. 

Lorraine, seized by Louis XIV, 230. 
See Alsace-Lorraine. 

Louis IX, of France, 85. 

Louis XI, 114. 

Louis XIV, 224, 230-235. 

Louis XV, 259, 268. 

Louis XVI, 263-293, passim. 

Louis XVII, 325, note. 

Louis XVIII, 325, 330-331. 

Louis Philip/>e, 350, 385-388. 

Lou-vain', 610. 

Lowell, James Russell, on Vol- 
taire, 261. 

Ludendorff, 635 and passim 

Lusitania, the, 631-633. 

Lutheran Church, organized, 142 ; 
wins northern Europe, 142, 144. 



22 



INDEX 



Luther, Martin, 137, 137-146. 
Liitzen, Battle of, 175. 
Lyons, 296, 297. 

Macaulay, on P'rench war-inothods 
in age of Louis XIV, 232. 

Mac-Ma-/ion, Pre,sident of France, 
and monarchic plots, 491-492. 

Ma-gen'ta, Battle of, 407. 

Magna Carta, SO-81. 

Magyars (m6d'y6rz). See Hun- 
gary. 

Mahomet the Conqueror, and 
Constantinople, 121. 

Majuba (ma-yu'ba) Hill, Battle of, 
472. 

Malplaquet (mal-pla-ka'), 476. 

Malta, siege of, 171 ; secured by 
England, 328. 

Manchester Doctrine, 381. 

Manchuria, .556, 558-559. 

Mannerheim, 692. 

Manor, in feudal age, 65-70. 

Marat (ma-ra'), 275, 286. 

Marathon, Battle of, 10. 

Marcus Aurelius, 15. 

Marengo, Battle of, 310. 

Maria T/ie-re'sa, 242. 

Marie Antoinette (an-twa-nfif), 
263. 

Mariner's Compass, 134, 221. 

Marlborough, 233, 234. 

Mame, First Battle of, 615. 

Marseillaise (niar-sa-y&'), the, 
288. 

Marston Moor, Battle of, 201-202. 

Marx, Karl, 383, 384. 

Mary of Bvu-gundy, 124, 125. 

Mary Tudor, Queen of England, 
1.58-159. 

Maximihah, of Austria, failure, 
119 ; marries Mary of Bur- 
gundy, 125. 



Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, 
407. 

Mayfields, in Frankish state, 34, 
49. 

Mayors of the Palace, 37, 45. 

Mazzini (miit-se'ne), Joseph, and 
Young Italy, 399 ; in 1848, 399- 
400 ; fine challenge in defeat, 
400-401 ; condemns entrance 
into Crimean War, 409. 

Methodist Movement in England, 
214-215. 

Metric System, adopted by French 
Revolutionists, 300. 

Mettemich (niK), rule of, 324 ff. ; 
and the German Confederation, 
336-337 ; and the Holy Alliance, 
342-344 ; overthrow, 392. 

Metz, seized by France from Ger- 
many, 145 ; siege by Prussians, 
422 ; ceded by Germany, 687. 

Mexico, and Louis Napoleon, 407. 

Michael Angelo (mK'kgl an'je-lo), 
132. 

" Middle Ages," term explained, 
50 ; intellectual marks of, 129. 

Militarism, 511 and passim. See 
Armametits. 

Miliiikof, .587, 644 

Milton, John, 207. 

Ministerial Government (" re- 
si)onsihl(' " government). See 
Cuhinct Goprrnment. 

Min-ne-sing'ers, 104. 

Mirabeau (me-ra-bo'), 271, 278. 

" Mittel Europa," 595, 624. 

Mobilization, explained, 608-609. 

Mohammed, 39. 

Mohammedanism, origin, .38-39 ; 
growth, 39-41 ; repulse from 
Constantinople in eighth cen- 
tury, 41 ; repulse at Todrs, 42 ; 
division into rival states, 42 ; 



INDEX 



23 



in eleventh century, culture, 

88-90 ; Turkish leadership, 92. 

See Crusades. 
Moliere (mo-lyar'), 234. 
Moltke, General von, 415, 421. 
Monasteries, 35-36 ; dissolution 

of, in England, 154-156. See 

Friars. 
Mongols, 218-219. 
Monroe Doctrine, origin, 344. 
Mont-caZm', 243. 
Mon-te-ne'gro, 591. 
More, Sir Thomas, 134, 157 ; 

quoted on decay of yeomanry, 

182-183. 
Moreau (mo-ro'), 310. 
Morgarten, Battle o'f, 123. 
Mo-ris'coes, expulsion of, 171. 
Morocco, 503. 
Mos-cou;, 236, 324. 
Mukden (mook'denj, Battle of, 

558. 
Mii-rar, 319. 
Muskets, introduction, 175-176. 

Nantes, Edict of, 173 ; revoked, 
231. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, saves Direc- 
tory, 304 ; campaigns in Ital}', 
305 ; character, 306-308 ; fail- 
ure in Egypt, 308 ; overthrows 
Directory, becomes First Consul, 
309 ff. ; Code, 312-313 ; pleb- 
iscites, 314 ; despotic rule, 
314-315 ; plans universal do- 
minion, 315 ; later wars (1803- 
1805), 315-317 ; failure at Bou- 
logne, 316 ; Ulm, Austerlitz, 
and Jena, 316-317 ; Peninsula 
campaigns, 319 ; consolidation 
of Germany, 320-322 ; greatest 
power (1810), 323 ; invasion 
of Russia, 324 ; fall, 324-325 ; 



return from Ellja, 330 ; Water- 
loo, 331. 

Napoleon II, term explained, 404. 

Napoleon III, Louis Napoleon, 
president Second French Re- 
public, 391-392, 402 ff. ; French 
garrison in Rome, 400 ; i)lots 
against Republic, 402-403 ; 
."Crime of 1851," 403-^04; des- 
potic rule, 404-405 ; prosperity 
of France under, 405-406 ; wars 
of, 406-408 ; tricked by Bis- 
marck, 420 ; tricked into war 
with Prussia, 421 ; inefficiency 
of his government, 422 ; fall, 422. 

Nar-va, Battle of, 328. 

Nase'by, Battle of, 201. 

National Workshops. See France 
for 1871. 

Nationality, term explained, 335, 
note. 

Na-va-ri'no (ri-re). Battle of, 346. 

Necker, minister of finance, 264- 
265, 266, 272, 273. 

Nelson, Admiral, 308, 315, 317. 

Netherlands, in Middle Ages, 124 ; 
passes to Hapsburgs, 125 ; re- 
volt against Phihp II, 166 ff. ; 
character of war, 167 ; and 
William the Silent, 167 ff. ; 
relief of Leyden, 167-168 ; Eng- 
lish aid, 168 ; and Spanish 
Armada, 168 ; southern prov- 
inces (later Belgium) remain 
Spanish, 168 ; northern prov- 
inces (Holland) independent, 
168-170 ; prosperity during war, 
170 ; (for Dutch Republic from 
this time, see Holland) ; Spanish 
Netherlands become Austrian 
Netherlands, at Utrecht, 233 ; 
conquered by France, 292. See 
Belgium. 



24 



INDEX 



Newfoundland, lost l)y France at 
Utrecht, 233. 

" New Monarchies,'' at end of 
Middle Ages, 125-126. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 259. 

New Zealand, pioneer in de- 
mocracy, 471. 

Nice (nes), annexed to France, 305 ; 
restored to Sardinia in 1814, 
328 ; ceded to France in' 1859, 
407. 

Nihilists (Russian), 581, 584. 

Nile, Battle of, 308. 

Ni-ve'Ue, French general, 645, 
646. 

Normal School, the first, in French 
Revolution, 300. 

Normandy, term explained, 56. 

Norman Conquest, of England, 
77-78. 

Norsemen, 55-56, 59. 

North German Confederation 
(1867), 418 ; merged in Ger- 
man Empire, 423. 

Norway, Swedish at Congress of 
Vienna, 330, 541-542 ; Diet at 
Eidvold, 542 ; Dual Monarchy 
(with Sweden), 542 flf. ; contrast 
witli Sweden, 543 ; struggle for 
self-government, 543-544 ; in- 
dependence, 544 ; woman 
suffrage, 544-545. 

Nova Scotia, lost by France, 233. 

N6-va'ra, Battle of, 400, 408. 

O'Connell, Daniel, and the House 

of Lords, 448. 
Old Age Pensions. See Social 

Insurance. 
Old Sarum, 426. 
Ohntitz, Prussian humiliation at, 

397. 
Ordeal, Trial by, 31-33. 



Orleans Monarchy. See Loids 

Philippe. 
Oscar II, of Sweden and Norw^ay, 

.543. 
Otto I, of Germany and Holy 

Roman Empire, 87. 
Owen, Robert, 370 ; one of the 

early Socialists, 382-383. 
Oxford Reformers, the, 13.3-134. 

Painting, Medieval, 104 ; Renais- 
sance, 1.32. 

Pankhurst, Sylvia, 484. 

Papacy, rise of, 42-43 ; split 
with Greek Empire, 43-44 ; 
head of Western Christendom, 
44 ; growing temporal power in 
eighth century, 44-45 ; threat- 
ened by Lombards, 45; Frankish 
aid creates the Papal States, 45, 
46 ; in feudal age, 74-75 ; at 
close of Middle Ages, 115 ff. ; 
struggle with England and 
France, 113-115 ; "Babylonian 
Captivity," 115-116 ; and Coun- 
cil of Constance, 117-118 ; and 
Kingdom of Italy, 528 ; and 
World War, 528. 

Papal States, 42-45, 47, 528. 

Parlement (par-16-man'), of Paris, 
demands the States General, 266. 

Parliament, English, beginning, to 
Model Parliament of 1295, 81- 
83 ; division into two Houses, 
83-85 ; deposes Edward II, 
105 ; • growth of power xmder 
Lancastrians, 111-112 ; decline 
imder Tudors, 113 ; but forms 
preserved, 185-186 ; imder 
Elizabeth, 188 ; struggle with 
first Stuarts, 188-203 ; during 
Commonwealth, 203 ff. ; under 
later Stuarts, 206 ff. ; gains 



INDEX 



25 



supremacy over crown in Revo- 
lution of 1688, 211-212. See 
Cabinet Government a»d England 
for parliamentary reform in 
nineteenth and twentieth cen- 
turies. 

Pas-teur', and germ theory of 
disease, 564. 

Pavia, Battle of, 128. 

Peace Congress (Versailles) of 
1919, 674-692. 

Peasant Rising, of 1381 (English), 
108-110. 

Peasant Revolt, in Germany (1525), 
142 ; followed by White Terror, 
143. 

Peel, Sir Robert, and Corn Law 
repeal, 453-455. 

Pershing, John J., 658. 

Persia, contributions to ancient 
civihzation, 6-7, 10 ; and Euro- 
pean aggression, 554 ; constitu- 
tional government, 561 ; Anglo- 
Russian agreement of 1910, 569- 
570 ; virtually Enghsh, 691. 

Pe-rii-gi'no (gi = ge), 132. 

Pet am'. General, 646. 

Peter " the Great," 237-239. 

Petition of Right, the Enghsh, 
194-195. 

Pe'trarch, 130-131. 

Pet'ro-grad, founded as St. Peters- 
burg, 237. 

Philip II, of Spain, 145, 158, 159, 
163-168, 169-171. 

Philip Augustus, of France, 85. 

Philip the Fair, 85 ; and the States 
General, 86. 

Phoe-nic'ians, part in civihzation, 
6. 

Pi-a've, Battle of, 658. 

Piedmont, term explained, 341. 
See Sardinia. 



Pilgrimage of Grace, the, and 
Henry VII I's " f rightfulness," 
155-156. 

Pilgrimages, medieval, 92. See 
Crusades. 

Pip'pin the Short, first Carohngian, 
45 ; anointed, 45. 

Pitt, WiUiam, the Elder, and wars 
of Frederick II, 243 ; and need 
of Parhamentary Reform, 428. 

Pitt, William, the Younger, and 
Parhamentary Reform, 428. 

Pius IX, Pope, 399. 

Plas'sey, Battle of, 244. 

Pleb'i-scites, in France, of Na- 
poleon I, 314 ; of Napoleon III, 
404. 

Pliny, Latin author, 15. 

Poland, Partitions, 247-248 ; re- 
stored in part by Napoleon, 
321 ; imited to Russia by 
Congress of Vienna, 329 ; Re- 
public of (1919), 677. 

Political Economy, the, of Adam 
Smith, 381. 

Political Parties, germs in England 
in seventeenth century, 189 ; 
Whigs and Tories, 208-209. 

" Politics," term defined, 63, note. 

Polo, Marco, 219. 

Pope, term explained, 42. See 
Pa'pacy. 

Port Arthur, 556, 557 ; siege of, 
558. 

Portugal, origin, 119 ; seized tem- 
porarily by Spain, 166 ; loses 
colonies in East to Holland, 166 ; 
building of colonial empire, 219- 
220 ; and Napoleon, 318 ; sum- 
mary to 1900, 536 ; RepubUc 
of, 537. 

Postage, Penny, in 1840, 453. 

Prax-it'e-les, 9. 



26 



INDEX 



Presbyterianism, in Scotland, 162. 

Printing, invention, 134. 

Protestant, name explained, 144 ; 
Protestantism and private judg- 
ment, 141, 146. 

Prussia, colonized by Germans, 87 
240 ; acquired by Brandenburg 
240 ; independent kingdom 
under Hohenzollerns, 241 
growth to Frederick II, 240-241 
under Frederick II, 242, 249- 
250 ; " profitable " wars, 242 
and French Revolution, see 
French Revolution; and Na- 
poleon, 317 ; reforms of Stein 
322-323 ; War of Liberation 
324-325 ; one of " Allies ' 
against Napoleon, 325 ff. ; at 
Congress of Vienna, 327 ff. 
gains Pomerania, Rhine dis- 
tricts, and Saxony, 329-331 
promised constitution betrayed 
336-338 ; in 1848, 395-396 ; hu- 
miliated by Austria, 397-398 
growth into Germany, 413 ff. 
army, 414-415 ; and Bismarck 
413 ff. ; " trilogy of wars,' 
414-423 ; wins Sleswig, 417 
excludes Austria from Germany, 
417 ; annexes Hanover and 
other territory, 418 ; review 
of growth, 418 ; Franco-Prussian 
War, 421 ff. ; and. German Em- 
pire, 422-423, 506-507. See 
Bismarck. 

Prussian Army, 414. See Mili- 
tarism. 

Piil-ta'va, Battle of, 238. 

Piiritanism, 186 ; factions in, 186- 
187 ; and political liberty, 
187 ff. ; decline after Enghsh 
Restoration, 207 ff. 

Pym, John, 198 ff. 



Quebec, founded, 202. 

Racine (ra»cen'), 234. 

Railway. See Steam, Electricity. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, and America, 

225. 
Ramlllies (ra-me'ya), Battle of, 233. 
Raphael (raf'a-61), 132. 
Ra-ven'na, 44, 45. 
Reed, Major Walter, and Yellow 

Fever extinction, 565. 
Referendum, the Swiss, 549. (In 

French Revolution, 294. See 

Plebiscites.) 
Reformation, the Protestant, 

137 ff. ; in Germany, 137-145 ; 

in Switzerland and France, 145- 

149 ; in England, 153-164. See 

Counter- Reformation and Re- 
ligious Wa.r.'i. 
Reichstag (rlKs'tac), the German, 

505. 
" Reign of Terror," the, in French 

Revolution, 298-299 ; discussed, 

300-301. 
Religious Wars, of the Reformation 

period, 166 ff. 
Renaissance, character, 129-130 ; 

in Italy, 130-132 ; pagan side, 

132 ; in Northern Europe, 133- 

134. 
Richelieu (re-shel-yfi') , Cardinal, 

174. 
Rights of Man, Declaration of, 

279-280. 
Ro'bes-pierre, 274, 278, 286, 296- 

297, 302, 303. 
Roman Catholic Chtirch, in feudal 

age, 72 ff. See Christianity. 
Roman Empire, established, 11 ; 

lands and peoples, 12 ; life 

and work under the Early 

Empire (to 192 a.d.), 12-17 ; 



INDEX 



27 



decline in third century, 19 ; 
centralized despotism, 19 ; " re- 
forms " of Diocletian, 19 ; causes 
of " fall," 19-25 ; and Chris- 
tianity, 25-26 ; overthrow in 
West, see Teutons. For the 
Eastern World, see Greek Em- 
pire. 

Roman Law. See Justinian Code. 

Romance, term explained as ap- 
phed to peoples or languages, 
177. 

Rome, Ancient, 10-11. See Ro- 
man Empire. 

Romilly, and penal reform, A'iO- 
431, 450. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, on England 
and the American Revolution, 
246 ; and Kaiser Wilham in 
relation to Venezuela, 524 ; and 
Treaty of Portsmouth, 558. 

Roumanians, 590 ; enter World 
War and collapse, 636. See 
Balkans . 

Rousseau (roo-so'), 262. 

Ruskin, John, 441. 

Russell, Lord John, 431, 445. 

Russia, early history, 235-237 ; 
" Europeanized " by Peter " the 
Great," 237-239 ; territorial 
growth, 238-239, 247-248 ; Til- 
sit, 317 ; Napoleon's mvasion, 
323-324 ; one of the " Allies " 
against Napoleon, 325 ff. ; and 
Congress of Vienna — plunder, 
327-329 ; see Holy Alliance; 
crushes Hungary in 1849, 395 ; 
interferes to rob Japan in 1895, 
555 ; advance into Manchuria 
(Port Arthur), 556 ; war with 
Japan, 557-559 ; and Dual 
Alliance, 569 ; and Triple 
Entente, 570 ; review of terri- 



torial advance, 575-577 ; area 
and population in 1910, 577 ; 
rivalry with England in Asia, 
577 ; subject races, 578 ; au- 
tocracy, 578 ff. ; revolutionary 
agitation in nineteenth century, 
578, 584 ; Slavophilism, 579- 
581 ; emancipation of serfs, 
580 ; Industrial Revolution and 
Socialism, 584 ; First Russian 
Revolution (1906), 584-589 ; 
and World War opening, 608- 
609 ; treason in, 620 ; lack of 
industrial organization, 621 ff. ; 
recovery in 1916, 636 ; Revolu- 
tions of 1917, 644-645. See 
Bolsheviki, Peace Congress. 

Russo-Japanese War, 557-559. 

Russo-Turkish War, 593. 

Saar Valley, settlement regarding, 
at Peace Congress, 686-687. 

Sa-do'wa, Battle of, 417. 

St. Bartholomew, Massacre of, 172, 
173. 

St. Francis, 76. 

St. John, Knights of, 93 ; and 
Siege of Malta, 171. 'note. 

St. Just, ideals in French Revolu- 
tion, 296-297, 302-303. 

St. Petersburg. Sec Pctrograd. 

Saint- Simon, 382. 

Salamis, 10. 

Sal-o-ni'(ne)ki, Allies at, in World 
War, 662 and passim.. 

San Stef a-no, Peace of, 593. 

Sardinia, Kingdom of, and Revolu- 
tion of '48, 399-400 ; expansion 
into Italy, 408-413. 

Sa-v6y', 305, 328, 407. 

Scheid'e mann, Philip, 675. 

Schoolmen, the method of, 100- 
101. 



28 



INDEX 



> 



Scientific Method (experiment, 
etc.), born in sixteenth century, 
178-179. 

Scotland, personal union with Eng- 
land, 197, note ; Laud and 
Episcopacy, 197 ; and the 
Covenant, 198 ; rises against 
Charles I, 198 ; " Union " 
with England, 215. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 441. 

Secret Treaties, the, of World 
War, 650 ff. 

Sedan (se-defi'), Battle of, 422. 

Sem'paeh, Battle of, 123. 

" Self-determination " by Italians, 
in 1859, 413. See Fourteen 
Points. 

Separatists. See Independents. 

September Massacres, the, in 
Paris, 291 ; discussed, 298-300. 

Serbs, see Slavs; conquered by 
Turks, 121'; history to 1800,^ 
591 ; to 1900, 593' ; and Austrian 
and German ambitions in Bal- 
kans, 594-595 ; hostility to 
Austria, 595 ; and World War, , 
606-608, 617. See South Slavs. ' 

Serfdom, in later Roman history, 
23-24 ; under feudal system, 
60, 66-70 ; cUsappears in Eng- 
land, 107-110; confirmed in 
Germany after 1525, 143 ; in 
France at 1789, 253-254 ; abol- 
ished in France, 275 ; and in 
much of Central Europe by 
Napoleon, 322 ; restored after 
Waterloo, 334 ; vanishes after 
'48, west of Russia, 392, 402. 
See Russia, " Emancipation." 

Ser-ve'tus, martyrdom of, 148- 
149 ; and discovery of circula- 
tion of the blood, 148-149. 

Seven Years' War, the, 242-243. 



Shaftesbury. See Ashley. 

Shakspere, 165. 

Shan-tiing', German intrusion into, 

572 ; betrayed to Japan, 688. 
Ship-money, in England, 196-197. 
Siam, 553, 554, 560. 
Sicily, Kingdom of (and Naples), 

126 ; passes to France and then 

to Spain, and to the Hapsburgs, 

126-128. 
Sieyes (se-a-yas'). 263, 310. 
Simon of Monttort, 82-83. 
Six Weeks' War, the, 417. 
Slavery, in Roman Empire, 20 ; 

gives way to serf labor, 23, 24. 
Slavophilism, 581-.583. 
Slavs, in southeastern EiU"ope, 

28-29 ; and Charlemagne, 47 ; y 

threaten Western Europe, 55. ^ 

See Russia, Serbs, Bulgaria, Bo- 
/ hernia. 
Sleswig, and Danish War, 416-^ 

417 ; seized by Prussia, 418 ; 

attempts to Prussianize, 518- 

519 ; and plebiscites after World 

War, 688. 
Smiits, Jan, 689. 
Social Insurance, English, in 1908- 

1911, 481-482 ; in Germany 

vnider Bismarck, 516-517. 
" Social Justice," demand for, 

566-569 ; after World War, 700. 
Socialism, rise, 382 ; modern, 

383-384 ; weak side of, 384 ; 

and Revolution of '48 in France, 

387 ff. ; in France to-day, 501 ; 

in Germany, 515-518 ; in 

Russia, 584. See Bolsheviki. 
S61-fer-i'(e)no, Battle of, 407. 
Somme, Battle of, 635. 
Sonderbund (zon'der-btint), 546. 
South Africa, see Cape Colony; 

after 1815, 471 ff. ; self-goVern- 



INDEX 



29 



ment in 1870, 470 ; Boer States 
in, 470-471 ; Boer Wars, 472- 
473 ; England's wise treatment 
afterward, 472-473 ; federal 
union, 474. 

South Slavs, new state, organized 
after World War, 676. See 
Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegro. 

Spain, Vandals and Goths in, 28 ; 
conquered by Mohammedan 
Arabs, 41 ; " Africa begins at 
the Pyrenees," 119 ; reconquest 
by Christian princes, in 800 
years' crusade,. 119 ; consolida- 
tion, 119-120 ; greatest Euro- 
pean power, under Philip II, 

166 ; struggle with the Dutch, 

167 ff. ; defeat of Armada by 
English, 168 ; expulsion of 
Moriscoes, 170-171 ; decay, 
171, 222 ; acquisition of Amer- 
ica, 221-222 ; Hapsburg i-ulers 
give way to French Bourbons, 

232 ; loses Gibraltar to England, 
and Netherlands and Italian 
possessions to Austria at Utrecht, 

233 ; loses Florida, 244 ; receives 
West Mississippi Valley, 244 ; 
seized by Napoleon and War of 
Liberation, 340 ; Constitution 
of 1812, 340 ; loss of Spanish 
America and Revolution of 1820, 
341 ; absolutism restored by 
Holy Alliance, and following 
White Terror, 343 ; and '48, 
392 ; summary for 1800-1914, 
531-535 ; Republic under Cas- 
telar, 532-533 ; new constitu- 
tional monarchy of 1873, 533- 

534 ; loss of dolonial empire, 

535 ; church and state, 535-536. 
Spanish America, and Holy Al- 
liance, 344-345. 



Spanish-American War, the, 535. 

Spanish Revolution of 1820, 340 ff. 

Spenser, Edmund, 164, 165. 

Spinning industry, revolution in, 
about 1775, 356-358. 

Stael, Madame de, and Napoleon, ] 

314. - ^ 

Stam-bii-lows'ld, 690. # 

Stanley, Henry, explorer, 552. 

States General (Estates General), 
origin and decay, 86. See 
French Revolution . 

Steamboat, 364-365. 

Steam Engine, 361-362 ; in 
France only after 1815, 387. 

Steam Railway, 365 ff. 

Stem (shtin), Baron von, 322-323, 
336. 

Stephenson, George, 365. 

Stevens, John, Aaneiican inventor, 
365. 

Stiles, Dr. Charles W., and hook- 
worm, 565. 

Stone Age, the, 3-4. 

Stor-t/iing, Norwegian, 188 ff. 

Stuart kings, in England, 188 ff. 
and table on 213. 

Suez Canal, and England in 
Egypt, 468-469. 

Suffragettes, 483-484. See 

Woman Suffrage. 

Sun Yat Sen, Chinese patriot, 562. 

Sweden, 55 ; conquers east 
Baltic coast, 55 ; south Baltic 
coast, 177 ; loses east Baltic 
up to Finland, to Russia, 239 ; 
loses Finland and Pomerania 
at Congress of Vienna, and 
gains Norway, 328-330 ; dual 
monarchy, 542 ff. ; accedes to 
Noi-wegian independence, 544 ; 
constitution and woman suffrage, 
545. 



30 



INDEX 



Switzerland, origin and history to 
French Revolution, 121-123, 
145-147, 177 ; Helvetic Re- 
public, 308 ; reorganized loosely 
in 1814 ; and neutrality guar- 
anteed, 328 ; sole Republic in 
Europe, 332, 546 ; Sonderbund 
War, 546-547 ; Constitution of 
1848, 547-548 ; direct legislation, 
549-550 ; place in history, 551. 



Tacitus, and Teutons, 27-28. 
Talleyrand, at Congress of Vienna, 

329. 
Tan-nen-berg, Battle of, 616. 
Tartars, invasions of Europe by, 235. 
Telescope, invention of, 134. 
Templars, Knights, 93. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 441. 
Teuton, term exphxined, 52-53. 
Teutonic Barbarians, peaceful in- 
fusion into Roman Empire, 20 ; 
home east of Rhine, conditions 
in, 27-28 ; conquest of Western 
Europe, 28 ; fused with remains 
of Roman culture, 29 ; law 
codes adopted, 31-32 ; pohtical 
institutions modified by the con- 
quest, 34 ; a new chance for 
democracy, 34. 
Teutonic Order, Knights of, 93, 

240, map after 98. 
Thackeray, 441. 

Thiers (ty-ar'), the king reigns 
but does not govern, 348 ; 
leader of Liberals (1830-1848), 
285 ; moderate demands in '48, 
386-387 ; opposes Franco- 
Prussian War, 421 ; and peace 
terms, 486 ; President of Third 
Republic, 490-491. 
Thirty Years' War, the, in Ger- 
many, 174-176. 



Tilsit, Peace of, 317. 
Tin-to-ret'to, 132. 
Titian (tish'Sn), 132, 
Togo, Admiral, 558. 
Tours (toor), Battle of, 41-42. 
Towns, in Roman Empire, 12-13 ■ 
preserve civilization after Bar- 
barian conquest, 30 ; destruction 
in North, 35 ; survive in South, 
ih.; gi-ovrth of, after Crusades, 
94-96 ; medieval life in, 96-99 ; 
leagues of, 99 ; and Industrial 
Revolution, 372-375 and -passu,}. 
Trade Unions, early, in England, 

443-444. 
Tra-fal'gar, Battle of, 315-317. 
Tran-syl-va'ni-a, 590. 
Trans-Siberian Railway, 556, 576. 
Transubstantiation, 107 ; Luther 

and Zwingh on, 146. 
Trent, Council of, 140, note, 150. 
Trev'i-t/iick, Richard, and steam 

motor, 365. 
Tri-este', 527. 
Triple AUiance, 568-569. See 

Bismarck, World War. 
Triple Enten'te. See Dual Al- 
liance. 
Tripoli, seized *by Italy, 527. 
Trop-pau, Congress of, 342. 
Trou-ba-dours, 104. 
Tudors, 113 ; table of, 153. 
Tunis, and France and Italy, 502- 

503, 527. 
Tur'gen-iev, 579. 
Tiir-got', 264. 

Turks, first appear, 92 ; and 
Crusades, 92 ff. ; South-east 
Europe and Constantinople, 
121 ; Battle of Lepanto, 171 ; 
and Armenian Massacres of 
95, 521-522 ; and Germany, 
522 ; Young Turks' Revolution, 



INDEX 



31 



661 ; loss of territory, 561. See 
Balkans, World War, Peace 
Congress. 
Tyndal, 441. 

Ulm, Battle of, 31G. 

Ulster, and Irish problem, 412-413, 
461. 

United States of America, see 
America, American Revolution, 
and Inventions; becomes World 
Power, 554 ; and Germanj'^, 
524-554-555 ; and World War, 
628-637, 638-643 ; Wilson's 
War Message, 641-642 ; swift 
preparation, 648-649, 651 ff. ; 
turns tide in 1918, 658 flf. ; war 
efficiency, 664-673 ; and Peace 
Congress, which see. 

Universities, medieval, 100, 101 ; 
opposed to Renaissance, 131 ; 
captm-ed by Humanism, 132. 

Utopia, quoted, 134. 

Utreeht, Peace of, 233. 

Valmy, Battle of, 292. 

Vane, Sir Harry, 198, 203, 204. 

Van Eycks (Iks), the, and discovery 
of oUs, 132. 

Vendee (v6n-da'), revolt in, 93, 
2%. 

Venice, champion of Christendom, 
121 ; betrayed to Austria by 
iNTapoleon, 305-306 ; by Na- 
poleon III, 409 ; won by Italy, 
157. 

Verde, Cape, name explained, 219 
and note. 

Verdun, Battle of, 634-635. 

Verdun, Treaty of, 54. 

Verona, Congre'- ' '^.43. 

Victor Emmar )8 409. 

^'ictorian Age 



Vienna, Congress of, 327-351. 
Villa, a Roman, 21-22 ; copied by 

Teutons, 35. 
Villeins, 60. 
Vladivostock (vla-dyg-vos-t6k') , 

576. 
Voltaire, 260-261. 

Wage System, in industry. See 
Factory Sijstem . 

Wai-hei-wai (wI-hii'wT), 556. 

Wallenstein (viil'lgn-stin), 175. 

" War of i8i2," 318. 

Wars of the Roses, 113. 

Wat the Tyler, 109. 

Watling Street, 59. 

Waterloo, 331. 

Watt, James, and steam engine, 
361, 362. 

Weaving, Revolution in, 360. 

Wellmgton, Duke of, 331, 343, 431. 

Wentworth, Thomas, 197. 

Wesley, John, 215. 

Westphalia, Peace of, 176-177. 

White Terrors, in England in 1831, 
108 ; in Germany after 1525, 
143 ; in France in 1795, 304 ; 
in Naples, 343 ; in Spain in 
1822, 343 ; m France after '48, 
391 ; in France in 1871, 489 ; 
in Germany after World War, 
676 ; in Russia, 692. 

Whitney, Eli, 360. 

William I, of Prussia, in '48, 395, 
413 ; becomes kmg, 413 ; plans 
and success, 414-415 ; and Ems 
incident, 421 ; Emperor and 
divine right, 512. 

WUliam H, of Germany, 512-513, 
520-524. See World War. 

William of Orange (William III of 
England), 204, 210, 230-231. 

WUliam the Silent, 167 ff. 



% 



32 



INDEX 



William Tell, myth of, 123. 

Wilson, Woodrow, President of 
the United States, and World 
War, ^^kfch see ; at Paris, 
679 ff. ; and Fiume, 684. 

Winthrop, John, on England in 
seventeenth century, 134. 

Wolfe, James, 243. 

Women, in Roman Empire, 15 ; 
in French Revolution, new rights, 
300 ; votes for, proposed in 1867 
in England, 445 ; suffrage won, 
483, 484, 540, 544-545, 589, 
675. 

World War, the Balkan seed 
ground, 590-598 ; Germany 
wills it, 599-604 ; occasion, 
605-609 ; Germany forces on, 
609 ff. ; aims of Germany and 
of England, 611-612 ; by years 
and campaigns (chs. xlvi-1), 



614—663 ; methods of warfare, 
615-616 ; " frightfuhie.ss," 624 ff.; 
English navy, 619 ; and United 
States, 628-633. See Peace 
Congress. 

Worms (vormz). Diet of, 141, 142. 

Writing, picture, 3 ; rebus stage, 
4. See Alphabet. 

Wyclif, John, 107-108, 117. 

Yalu (ya-loo'), Battle of, 558. 
" Year," the, discovered, 5. 
Young, Arthur, 253, 259. 
Young Italy, 399. 
Young Turks, 561. 
Ypres, First Battle of, 618. 
Ypres, Second Battle of, 622. 
Yuan Shih Kai, 562. 

Zabem Incident, the, 507-509. 
Zwingli, 145-146. 



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